I believe I did pretty well in the market this year. My networth increased ~65% since its lowest point in March, ~350k to 620k. 20k from the car I bought in March. I rolled over a 401k and it messed up Mint's reporting, hence the spike from Jul -> Aug.
I beat the SP500 by 40% in my YOLO account, my FAANG account went from 180->300
I did this by following some basic investing principles, buying and holding for the most part, being patient, and only investing in areas which I have expertise in.
I did not buy into the TSLA hype, nor do I play options, nor do I play crypto.

High level advice:

I picked the 7 I agree with.

1. Invest in what you know…and nothing more.
2. Never compromise on business quality
3. When you buy a stock, plan to hold it forever
4. Diversification can be dangerous
5. Most news is noise, not news (don't read articles about investing)
6. The best moves are usually boring (buy and hold)
7. Only listen to those you know and trust

I firmly believe that anyone who follows those concepts, they will find success in investing.

General mindset:

• Keep emotions out of the market
• Don't bother timing the market. Don't get ruled by FOMO.
• Understand that for some stocks, you can't really average cost down. You will have to stomach buying the stock at a higher entry point. My refusal to average up early on caused me to miss out on a lot of gains.
• Understand the difference between trading, investing, and gambling.
• Have an exit strategy (stop losses would have helped me a lot in March, I now learned from my expensive mistake)
• Be greedy-- not TOO greedy. If a stock pops 10%, I will sell half to lock in profits. It's super common to see a lot of companies pop and the next day dip a bit due to sell off. Perfect time to grab more on the dip. This is obviously impossible to time, which is why I only sell half.

Application:

I was very specific in the types of companies I would choose to invest in within tech. I decided to follow my strengths. As a data engineer, I'm very intimate with cloud technologies, and I think I generally have pretty sharp business acumen and good strategic direction.
As a result, my day to day work had me using a ton of technologies in the cloud space. I've used Splunk, NewRelic, Twilio, AWS, GCP, Hortonworks/Cloudera, Oracle, Tableau, Datadog, Sendgrid (bought by Twilio), Dropbox/box, Slack, Salesforce, Marketo, Databricks, Snowflake, HP Vertica, just to name a few. I was familiar with CDN services like Fastly and Cloudflare because sometimes, I worked with the DevOps and IT guys.
Based on industry hearsay, day to day work, eventually, I got a good "feel" of what technologies were widely adopted, easy to use, and had a good reputation in the industry. Similarly, I also got a feel for what tech were being considered 'dated' or not widely used (HP, Oracle, Cloudera, Dropbox, Box).
I tend to shy away from companies that I don't understand. In the past, most times I've done that-- I got burned. My biggest losers this year was betting on $NAT and $JMNA (10k total loss). After learning from those mistakes, I decided to only focus on investing in companies that either I or my peers have intimate first hand experience with using. Because of this rationale, the majority of stocks in my portfolio are products which I believe in, I thoroughly enjoy using, and I would recommend to my friends, family, and colleagues.
Post COVID, due to the shift to remote work and increase in online shopping I decided to double down on tech. I already knew that eCommerce was the next big thing. I made very early investments into SHOP and Amazon in 2017 for that reason.
My hypothesis was that post-COVID, the shift on increased online activity, remote work, and eCommerce would mean that companies which build tools to support increased online activity should also increase. I decided to choose three sectors within tech to narrow down-- these were three sectors that I had a good understanding of, due to the nature of my work and personal habits.

1. eCommerce + AdTech
2. IT/DevOps (increased online activity means higher need for infra)
3. FinTech (increased shopping activity means more transactions)

These are the points I consider before I consider jumping into a stock:

1. Do I feel good about using the company? Do I believe in the company's vision?
2. Where do I see this company in 5 years? 10 years? Do I see my potential children being around to use these companies?
3. What does YoY, QoQ growth look like for this company?
4. Is/Will this product be a core part of how businesses or people operate?
5. Who are their customers and target demographic?
6. (SaaS) Customer testimonials, white papers, case studies. If it's for a technology, I'm going to want to read a paper or use case.

In March, I took what I believe to be an "educated gamble". When the market crashed, I liquefied most of my non tech assets and reinvested them into tech. Some of the holdings I already had, some holdings were newly purchased.
EDIT ^{^} this isn't called timing the market you /wsb imbeciles. Timing the market would be trying to figure out when to PULL OUT during ATH and then buying the dip. I SOLD at the lowest point, and I with the cash I sold AT A LOSS, I reinvested that cash and doubled down into tech. If I sold in Feb, and bought back in March, that would be calling timing the market. What I am doing is called REINVESTING/REBALANCING... not timing the market.
I have 50% of my networth in AMZN, MSFT, AAPL, GOOG, FB, NFLX, and the rest in individual securities/mutual funds. I have 3 shares of TSLA that I got in @1.5.
Here are the non FAANGs I chose.

1. $SQ. I had already been invested in SQ since 2016. I made several bad trades, holding when it first blew past 90 until I sold it at 70... bought in again last year at 60s, after noticing that more and more B&M stores were getting rid of their clunky POS systems and replacing it with Square's physical readers. After COVID, I noticed a lot of pop up vendors, restaurants doing take out. A Square reader made transactions very easy to make post-COVID.
   
2. $ATVI. Call of Duty and Candy Crush print money for them. I've been a Blizzard fanboy since I was a kid, so I have to keep this just out of principle.
   
3. $SHOP. They turned a profit this year, and I think there is still a lot more room to grow. It's become somewhat of a household name. I've met quite a few people who mentioned that they have a Shopify site set up to do their side hustle. I've tried the product myself, and can definitely attest that it's pretty easy to get an online shop up and running within a day. I 5.5xed my return here.
   
4. $BIGC. I bought into this shortly after IPO. I'm very excited to see an American Shopify. BigC focuses on enterprise customers right now, and Shopify independent merchants, so I don't see them directly competing. I'm self aware this is essentially a gamble. I got in at 90, sold at 140, and added more in 120s. I def got lucky here... it's not common for IPOs to pop so suddenly. I honestly wasn't expecting it to pop so soon.
   
5. $OKTA. Best in class SSO tool. Amazing tool that keeps tracks of all of my sign-ons at work.
   
6. $DDOG. Great monitoring tool. Widely adopted and good recommendations throughout the industry. Always had a nice looking booth at GoogleNext.
   
7. $ZM. Zoom was the only video conf tool at work which I had a good time using. Adoption had blown up pre-COVID already in the tech world, and post-COVID, they somehow became a noun. "Zoom parties" and "Zoom dates" somehow became a thing interwoven into peoples' day to day lives.
   
8. $TWLO. Twilio sells APIs which allow applications to send messages like text, voice, and video chat. For example, when DoorDash sends you a text at 1 AM reminding you that your bad decision has arrived, that text is powered by Twilio. In March, New York announced that they were going to use Twilio to send SMS notifs for COVID contact tracing.
   
9. $NET/$FSTY. These two two seem like the ones best poised for growth in the CDN space. This is based off of industry exposure and chatting with people who work in DevOps.
   
10. $DOCU. people aren't going to office to sign stuff, super easy to use, I like their product.
    
11. $WMT. eComm, streaming, and a very substantial engineering investment makes me think they have room to grow. Also I really need to diversify.
    
12. $COST. When is the last time you heard someone say "Man I hate going to Costco and paying $1.50 for a hotdog and soda?" Diversification. Also cheap hotdogs.
    
13. $NVDA/AMD. GPUs are the present and the future. Not only are they used for video games, but Machine Learning now uses GPU instead of CPU to do compute (Tensorflow for example). Crypto is still a thing as well, and there will always been a constant need for GPUs.
    

Mutual funds/ETFs 1. $FSCSX. MF which focuses on FinTech.

1. $VTSAX Pretty much moves with the SP500.
   
2. $WCLD. Holdings include Salesforce, Workday, Zuora, Atlassian, Okta, New Relic, Fastly...
   

Titanvest: I was an early access user, and I was able to secure 0% fees for my accout. 36% gains so far. I like them, because their portfolio happens to include shares of tech giants that I either don't have individual stocks for or my stake is low (CRM, PPYL). It nicely complements my existing portfolio.

Some things I do that that are against the grain:

• Not really diversified. 80% is in tech. They are in very different sectors of tech, but the truth is, when tech falls, all of these companies fall. I'm obviously long tech and I do not believe that tech will fall anytime soon. What about the dot com bubble? There wasn't a single dot com company that was integral in our lives. The internet was in its infancy then. Techonology is now such an interwoven part of our lives and I see companies like Apple, Amazon, Google to be sticking around for several generations.
  
• I don't read investing articles. I think people who write articles about a stock all have ulterior motives-- to pump or to dump. Case in point-- Citron Research spent years writing articles telling people how SHOP was overvalued. Why did they do that? Because they were shorters at the time. I turned 5k into 27k, because I held on to most of my SHOP shares.
  
• I don't take much value from balance sheets, other than net loss, income, YoY growth. Instead, I use my business acumen to try to pick up on info that isn't super apparent from Google. For example, one thing I always do is that I look at the career page to see how the business is growing. Increase on marketing/sales/implementation engineers is typically a solid sign that a company is preparing headcount to take new deals in the upcoming quarters. I look at the product road map, supported integrations, and customer base.
  

One example was how I applied the above principle was to WalMart. In 2018 I noticed that I was getting targeted by a lot of Data engineering job listing for WalMartLabs-- WarMart's tech division. The role was to build out a big data pipeline to support their eCommerce platform. WalMart's online store released in Q3 of 2019. Post COVID, I used their online store and it was a seamless experience. They even offer a 5% cash back card like Amazon. They reported strong Q4 sales last year, and they did very well post COVID. Why did I choose to invest in $WMT? Because I believe that Wal-Mart has room to grow for their online platform.
Lastly... remember that wealth isn't accrued over time. It takes years to build. The quickest way to increase your wealth is by investing in yourself-- your career and earning potential. The sooner my income increased, the quicker I had more capital to buy into stocks.
Also, if you've gotten this far, the point of my post isn't to say that you should invest into tech. The message I'm trying to get across is-- when picking companies, pick companies in fields or verticals you have good knowledge in. Heed Buffet's advice to only pick companies you believe in and understand. Play to your strengths, don't mindless toss money based on one person's posts on Reddit-- always do your own due diligence. Use DD as a guide and use personal research and experience to drive your decision.

Introduction

Welcome to the /politics polling discussion thread for the general election. As the election nears, polling of both the national presidential popular vote and important swing states is ramping up, and with both parties effectively deciding on nominees, pollsters can get in the field to start assessing the state of the presidential race. Please use this thread to discuss polling and the general state of the presidential or congressional election. Below, you'll find some of the most recent polls, but this is by no means exhaustive, as well as some links to prognosticators sharing election models.
As always though, polls don't vote, people do. Regardless of whether your candidate is doing well or poorly, democracy only works when people vote, and there are always at least a couple polling misses every cycle, some of which are pretty high profile. If you haven't yet done so, please take some time to register to vote or check your registration status.

Polls

Below is a collection of recent polling of the US Presidential election. This is likely incomplete and also omits the generic congressional ballot as well as Senate/House/Gubernatorial numbers that may accompany these polls. Please use the discussion space below to discuss any additional polls not covered. Additionally, not all polls are created equal. If this is your first time looking at polls, the FiveThirtyEight pollster ratings page is a helpful tool to assess historic partisan lean in certain pollsters, as well as their past performance.
Several polls are in the field, so we won't have a full picture of the field until next week when more are expected to be released. Until then, here are the polls since August 16th.

Poll	Date	Type	Biden	Trump
USC Dornsife	8-30	National	54	39
YouGov	8-29	National	47	41
Morning Consult	8-29	National	50	44
Morning Consult	8-29	National	52	42
USC Dornsife	8-29	National	52	40
Emerson College	8-28	Massachusetts	69	30
Trafalgar Group	8-28	Michigan	45	46
Redfield & Wilton Strategies	8-28	National	48	38
Franklin & Marshall College	8-27	Pennsylvania	49	42
Harris Insights & Analytics	8-26	National	47	38
Ipsos	8-26	National	44	37
Benenson Strategy Group	8-26	National	50	39
Rasmussen Reports	8-26	National	46	45
YouGov	8-26	National	50	41
Roanoke College	8-26	Virginia	53	39
Ipsos	8-26	National	47	40
Change Research	8-26	Wisconsin	49	44
Change Research	8-26	Arizona	49	47
Change Research	8-26	Michigan	50	44
Change Research	8-26	Florida	49	46
Change Research	8-26	National	51	43
Change Research	8-26	North Carolina	48	47
Change Research	8-26	Pennsylvania	49	46
Trafalgar Group	8-25	Wisconsin	45	46
Public Policy Polling	8-25	Delaware	58	37
Public Policy Polling	8-25	New York	63	32
Public Policy Polling	8-25	Florida	48	44
Morning Consult	8-24	National	51	43
Morning Consult	8-24	National	52	43
Morning Consult	8-24	National	52	42
Morning Consult	8-24	National	51	43
Morning Consult	8-24	National	51	43
Morning Consult	8-24	National	52	42
Léger	8-24	National	49	40
Morning Consult	8-24	National	52	42
Morning Consult	8-24	North Carolina	49	46
Public Policy Polling	8-24	Texas	48	47
Trafalgar Group	8-24	Louisiana	37	54
YouGov	8-24	National	50	39
TargetSmart	8-24	Ohio	47	46
YouGov	8-23	National	52	42
Morning Consult	8-22	National	52	43
Morning Consult	8-22	National	51	43
Redfield & Wilton Strategies	8-22	National	49	39
Redfield & Wilton Strategies	8-21	Pennsylvania	48	41
Redfield & Wilton Strategies	8-21	Florida	49	41
Redfield & Wilton Strategies	8-21	North Carolina	44	46
Redfield & Wilton Strategies	8-21	Michigan	50	38
Redfield & Wilton Strategies	8-21	Wisconsin	49	39
Redfield & Wilton Strategies	8-21	Arizona	47	38
Harris Insights & Analytics	8-21	National	46	38
Civiqs	8-21	Wisconsin	51	45
Civiqs	8-21	Pennsylvania	51	44
Civiqs	8-21	Michigan	49	46
Civiqs	8-21	Ohio	47	47
DKC Analytics	8-21	New Jersey	52	33
Saint Anselm College	8-20	New Hampshire	51	43
Muhlenberg College	8-20	Pennsylvania	49	45
Global Strategy Group	8-20	Texas	47	45
Echelon Insights	8-20	National	51	38
Echelon Insights	8-20	National	53	39
Data for Progress	8-20	National	50	41
Morning Consult	8-20	National	47	36
Morning Consult	8-20	National	49	39
Trafalgar Group	8-19	Minnesota	46	46
Ipsos	8-19	National	48	40
Ipsos	8-19	National	45	36
ALG Research	8-19	Louisiana	43	50
Rasmussen Reports	8-19	National	48	44
YouGov	8-19	National	50	40
Harris Insights & Analytics	8-18	National	45	39
OnMessage Inc.	8-18	Wisconsin	47	47
OnMessage Inc.	8-18	Florida	49	49
OnMessage Inc.	8-18	Pennsylvania	50	46
OnMessage Inc.	8-18	Arizona	48	51
GQR Research (GQRR)	8-18	Michigan	52	43
Léger	8-17	National	51	35
Morning Consult	8-17	National	50	43
Morning Consult	8-17	National	51	43
Morning Consult	8-17	National	51	43
Morning Consult	8-17	National	51	43
Morning Consult	8-17	National	51	43
Morning Consult	8-17	National	51	42
Morning Consult	8-17	National	51	42
Morning Consult	8-17	Wisconsin	49	43
Redfield & Wilton Strategies	8-17	National	48	40
Landmark Communications	8-17	Georgia	44	47
YouGov	8-17	National	49	38
YouGov	8-17	National	50	41
YouGov	8-17	Texas	40	47
ABC News	8-17	National	54	44
ABC News	8-17	National	53	41
ABC News	8-17	National	53	41
SSRS	8-16	National	50	46
YouGov	8-16	National	52	42
East Carolina University	8-16	North Carolina	46	46
NBC News	8-16	National	50	41

Election Predictions

Prognosticators

Prognosticators are folks who make projected electoral maps, often on the strength of educated guesses as well as inside information in some cases from campaigns sharing internals with the teams involved. Below are a few of these prognosticators and their assessment of the state of the race:

• Cook Political Reports - Charlie Cook's race ratings are well regarded in the political field, and he's been in the business for a while. Cook is known to incorporate both public and nonpublic (ie. internal polling) information in his projections. Also covers (and is perhaps better known for) Senate and House races.
• Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball - Larry Sabato has also been in the political prediction business for a while now, and the team at the UVA Center for Politics has been fairly successful in past cycles. Towards the end of the election cycle, Sabato has a policy of making a call in each state, refusing to leave any race in the tossup category. Also covers Senate and House races.
• Inside Elections - Inside Elections, run by Nathan Gonzales, is the successor to Stu Rothenberg's Rothenberg Political Reports, which used to be a part of Roll Call. This prognosticator did fairly well in 2018, though Rothenberg himself boldly (along with some other pundits) predicted in 2016 that Donald Trump's path to the presidency was nonexistent. Also covers Senate, House and Gubernatorial races.
• Daily Kos Elections - Daily Kos Elections is the direct successor to the Swing State Project website, which merged with Daily Kos in 2010. Despite the liberal lean of the site as a whole, the Daily Kos Elections predictions tend to be fairly even-handed, if not even slightly bearish for Democrats. Presidential numbers aren't up yet but they have Senate, House and Gubernatorial races.
• RRH Elections - Red Racing Horses Elections is a site founded by former conservative-leaning members of the Swing State Project community. Despite the conservative nature of the commentary, like DKE, the race predictions tend to be fairly neutral, if slightly bearish for Republicans. Like the Crystal Ball, RRH will call all races before the election so that none are left in the tossup category. The presidential rankings have not been published but they do cover Senate, House, Gubernatorial and Row Officer (statewide elected officials, such as state Attorney General, Secretary of State etc.) races.
• Media predictions - CNN | U.S. News | NPR | POLITICO

Polling Models

Polling models are similar to prognosticators (and often the model authors will act like pundits as well), but tend to be about making "educated guesses" on the state of the election. Generally, the models are structured to take in data such as polls and electoral fundamentals, and make a guess based on research on prior elections as to the state of the race in each state. Below are a few of the more prominent models that are online or expected to be online soon:

• FiveThirtyEight - after months of work, the model is live! 538's team of analysts have put together a beast of a forecast for 2020. It runs 40,000 simulations of the election and uses that data to come up with a projected winner out of 100 sampled outcomes. It also breaks down the projection to show potential electoral college results, popular vote share, tipping point state likelihood, and it can even be broken down into state-level analytics.
• Princeton Election Consortium - this is the model run by Dr. Sam Wang, a neuroscience professor at Princeton University. This model has run in the past two cycles as well, though Sam Wang famously said he'd eat a bug if Donald Trump won the election because his model predicted no path to victory for the eventual winner of the 2016 election. Also includes projections for Senate and House.
• JHK Forecasts - the earliest model on the scene this cycle. Jack Kersting's model is one of the newer ones this year and also includes projections for Senate and House.
• The Economist - this is the model run by G. Elliott Morris, who previously had a midterm election model under The Crosstab.
• Niskanen Center - Rachel Bitecofer's projection, which only seems to update a couple times a cycle. Part of this has to do with Bitecofer's central argument that there are generally no swing voters, and electoral fundamentals drive the outcome of the election. This was put to the test in the 2018 midterms, where Bitecofer very early on predicted a Democratic pickup of 40-45 seats in the House, which fell about where the election ended up.
• Lean Tossup - a foreign model from Canada. This model did relatively well in the 2019 Canadian election, but this appears to be the first time they've tried forecasting the US Presidential election. Also includes Senate and House projections.
• Primary Model - Helmut Norpoth's model does not actually change with inputs anymore. The outcome it predicts, stated as a 91% chance for President Trump to win reelection, is premised entirely on the primary vote totals in the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries from earlier this year. Despite being a bit of an outlier against other models, this one was among the only to forecast that then-candidate Donald Trump was a favorite to win election in 2016, and has been applied to correctly predict the winner of 5 of the past 6 presidential elections.

Prediction Markets

Prediction markets are betting markets where people put money on the line to estimate the likelihood of one party winning a seat or state. Most of these markets will also tend to move depending on polling and other socioeconomic factors in the same way that prognosticators and models will work. Predictit and Election Betting Odds are prominent in this space, although RealClearPolitics has an aggregate of other betting sites as well.

Tomorrow May 1st, 2020 Colorado becomes the 19th state to legalize gambling! I been using bovada these past few years for my bookie but switching to FanDuel. Although, there won’t be much to gamble on I’m excited & is there anything to know when switching to fan duel? For example paying taxes? TIA

Introduction

Welcome to the /politics polling discussion thread for the general election. As the election nears, polling of both the national presidential popular vote and important swing states is ramping up, and with both parties effectively deciding on nominees, pollsters can get in the field to start assessing the state of the presidential race. Please use this thread to discuss polling and the general state of the presidential or congressional election. Below, you'll find some of the most recent polls, but this is by no means exhaustive, as well as some links to prognosticators sharing election models.
As always though, polls don't vote, people do. Regardless of whether your candidate is doing well or poorly, democracy only works when people vote, and there are always at least a couple polling misses every cycle, some of which are pretty high profile. If you haven't yet done so, please take some time to register to vote or check your registration status.

Polls

Below is a collection of recent polling of the US Presidential election. This is likely incomplete and also omits the generic congressional ballot as well as Senate/House/Gubernatorial numbers that may accompany these polls. Please use the discussion space below to discuss any additional polls not covered. Additionally, not all polls are created equal. If this is your first time looking at polls, the FiveThirtyEight pollster ratings page is a helpful tool to assess historic partisan lean in certain pollsters, as well as their past performance.
This is likely to be one of the last clear snapshots of polling until at least mid-September. Historically speaking, the party conventions impart a statistically significant 'bump' in candidates' poll numbers. This convention bounce averages around 5 points for candidates (though some candidates have far surpassed this number), but the trend of high bounces has seen a decline in recent elections. With increased coverage of each party during their respective conventions (DNC: August 17-20, RNC: August 24-27), and this year's conventions taking place in a mostly-remote setting, it is hard to predict how large or any impact on the polls will be.

Poll	Date	Type	Biden	Trump
NBC News	8-16	National	50	41
SurveyUSA	8-15	Connecticut	52	32
Redfield & Wilton Strategies	8-14	California	61	25
Data for Progress	8-14	National	51	41
Data for Progress	8-14	National	52	39
YouGov	8-14	Massachusetts	61	28
Global Strategy Group	8-14	National	52	42
Marist College	8-14	National	53	42
Fox News	8-13	National	49	42
Léger	8-13	National	46	--
Léger	8-13	National	47	39
Pew Research Center	8-13	National	53	45
Morning Consult	8-13	National	51	42
Morning Consult	8-13	National	50	43
Morning Consult	8-13	National	50	43
Harper Polling	8-13	North Carolina	45	44
Morning Consult	8-13	National	51	43
Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group	8-13	Mississippi	43	53
SurveyUSA	8-13	California	56	28
Rasmussen Reports	8-13	Wisconsin	55	42
Harris Insights & Analytics	8-12	National	44	40
Ipsos	8-12	National	47	38
Ipsos	8-12	National	43	37
Ipsos	8-12	National	56	43
Ipsos	8-12	National	58	42
SurveyUSA	8-12	Kansas	41	48
YouGov Blue	8-12	National	51	45
Rasmussen Reports	8-12	National	49	43
Critical Insights	8-12	Maine	45	38
YouGov	8-12	National	49	39
Morning Consult	8-12	National	49	40
Change Research	8-12	National	50	44
Change Research	8-12	Wisconsin	47	43
Change Research	8-12	North Carolina	47	48
Change Research	8-12	Arizona	45	44
Change Research	8-12	Florida	50	44
Change Research	8-12	Michigan	48	43
Change Research	8-12	Pennsylvania	48	44
MassINC Polling Group	8-12	Massachusetts	63	27
Emerson College	8-11	Pennsylvania	53	46
Emerson College	8-11	North Carolina	49	50
Emerson College	8-11	Arizona	53	46
Critical Insights	8-11	Maine	44	36
Critical Insights	8-11	Maine CD-2	39	38
Critical Insights	8-11	Maine CD-1	49	33
Marquette University Law School	8-11	Wisconsin	50	45
Marquette University Law School	8-11	Wisconsin	50	46
Monmouth University	8-11	National	52	39
Monmouth University	8-11	National	51	41
Emerson College	8-11	Minnesota	51	49
SurveyUSA	8-11	Georgia	46	44
Public Policy Polling	8-10	North Carolina	49	46
Rasmussen Reports	8-10	North Carolina	47	48
HIT Strategies	8-10	North Carolina	47	37
HIT Strategies	8-10	Georgia	44	40
Trafalgar Group	8-10	Arizona	44	46
RMG Research	8-10	National	45	37
RMG Research	8-10	Maine	50	39
Georgetown University (Battleground)	8-10	National	53	39
OH Predictive Insights	8-10	Arizona	49	45
Strategies 360	8-10	Nebraska CD-1	46	48
YouGov	8-10	Wisconsin	49	43
YouGov	8-10	Michigan	47	43
YouGov	8-10	Pennsylvania	50	41

Election Predictions

Prognosticators

Prognosticators are folks who make projected electoral maps, often on the strength of educated guesses as well as inside information in some cases from campaigns sharing internals with the teams involved. Below are a few of these prognosticators and their assessment of the state of the race:

• Cook Political Reports - Charlie Cook's race ratings are well regarded in the political field, and he's been in the business for a while. Cook is known to incorporate both public and nonpublic (ie. internal polling) information in his projections. Also covers (and is perhaps better known for) Senate and House races.
• Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball - Larry Sabato has also been in the political prediction business for a while now, and the team at the UVA Center for Politics has been fairly successful in past cycles. Towards the end of the election cycle, Sabato has a policy of making a call in each state, refusing to leave any race in the tossup category. Also covers Senate and House races.
• Inside Elections - Inside Elections, run by Nathan Gonzales, is the successor to Stu Rothenberg's Rothenberg Political Reports, which used to be a part of Roll Call. This prognosticator did fairly well in 2018, though Rothenberg himself boldly (along with some other pundits) predicted in 2016 that Donald Trump's path to the presidency was nonexistent. Also covers Senate, House and Gubernatorial races.
• Daily Kos Elections - Daily Kos Elections is the direct successor to the Swing State Project website, which merged with Daily Kos in 2010. Despite the liberal lean of the site as a whole, the Daily Kos Elections predictions tend to be fairly even-handed, if not even slightly bearish for Democrats. Presidential numbers aren't up yet but they have Senate, House and Gubernatorial races.
• RRH Elections - Red Racing Horses Elections is a site founded by former conservative-leaning members of the Swing State Project community. Despite the conservative nature of the commentary, like DKE, the race predictions tend to be fairly neutral, if slightly bearish for Republicans. Like the Crystal Ball, RRH will call all races before the election so that none are left in the tossup category. The presidential rankings have not been published but they do cover Senate, House, Gubernatorial and Row Officer (statewide elected officials, such as state Attorney General, Secretary of State etc.) races.
• Media predictions - CNN | U.S. News | NPR | POLITICO

Polling Models

Polling models are similar to prognosticators (and often the model authors will act like pundits as well), but tend to be about making "educated guesses" on the state of the election. Generally, the models are structured to take in data such as polls and electoral fundamentals, and make a guess based on research on prior elections as to the state of the race in each state. Below are a few of the more prominent models that are online or expected to be online soon:

• FiveThirtyEight - after months of work, the model is live! 538's team of analysts have put together a beast of a forecast for 2020. It runs 40,000 simulations of the election and uses that data to come up with a projected winner out of 100 sampled outcomes. It also breaks down the projection to show potential electoral college results, popular vote share, tipping point state likelihood, and it can even be broken down into state-level analytics.
• Princeton Election Consortium - this is the model run by Dr. Sam Wang, a neuroscience professor at Princeton University. This model has run in the past two cycles as well, though Sam Wang famously said he'd eat a bug if Donald Trump won the election because his model predicted no path to victory for the eventual winner of the 2016 election. Also includes projections for Senate and House.
• JHK Forecasts - the earliest model on the scene this cycle. Jack Kersting's model is one of the newer ones this year and also includes projections for Senate and House.
• The Economist - this is the model run by G. Elliott Morris, who previously had a midterm election model under The Crosstab.
• Niskanen Center - Rachel Bitecofer's projection, which only seems to update a couple times a cycle. Part of this has to do with Bitecofer's central argument that there are generally no swing voters, and electoral fundamentals drive the outcome of the election. This was put to the test in the 2018 midterms, where Bitecofer very early on predicted a Democratic pickup of 40-45 seats in the House, which fell about where the election ended up.
• Lean Tossup - a foreign model from Canada. This model did relatively well in the 2019 Canadian election, but this appears to be the first time they've tried forecasting the US Presidential election. Also includes Senate and House projections.
• Primary Model - Helmut Norpoth's model does not actually change with inputs anymore. The outcome it predicts, stated as a 91% chance for President Trump to win reelection, is premised entirely on the primary vote totals in the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries from earlier this year. Despite being a bit of an outlier against other models, this one was among the only to forecast that then-candidate Donald Trump was a favorite to win election in 2016, and has been applied to correctly predict the winner of 5 of the past 6 presidential elections.

Prediction Markets

Prediction markets are betting markets where people put money on the line to estimate the likelihood of one party winning a seat or state. Most of these markets will also tend to move depending on polling and other socioeconomic factors in the same way that prognosticators and models will work. Predictit and Election Betting Odds are prominent in this space, although RealClearPolitics has an aggregate of other betting sites as well.

First, I'm sorry this is so long. Second - please be nice. We have debt, bad habits, and are Catholic. So if any of those things are going to get you spun up, just skip this one.
Section One: Assets and Debt Use this section to explain your current financial picture at large.
Everything here is joint – “M” and I have been married 22 years and we’ve had “smashed money” that whole time (and really for about a year before that).
Retirement Balance (and how you got there): Approximately $500,000 in a variety of IRAs and current 401(k)s.
Equity if you're a homeowner (and how much you put down and how you accumulated that payment). Bought our house in 2001 for $239,000 with 20% down (some aggressive saving and a gift from each of our parents). We refinanced, took some cash out for some home repairs, and reduced it to a 15-year loan in 2009 – our current equity would be about $195,000, but similar homes in the neighborhood are listed at $475,000-$525,000, so if we ever sell, we’re probably coming out ahead.
Savings account balance: $6,000
Checking account balance: $6,500
Credit card debt (and how you accumulated it): I hope you’re sitting down. Approximately $40,000. Yes, you read that right. How we accumulated it? The house is 90 years old and constantly falling apart, so we’ve had to charge things that needed to be done (some we wanted to have done, but some – like the time our oil burner stopped working in December – were needs). We had two dogs with numerous medical issues – I don’t want to calculate what they cost me, but they each had surgeries that were about $5,000 (each), plus other chronic and acute medical issues. And yes…for a while, we were doing and buying things we probably shouldn’t have (not bad things, just vacations, clothes, and non-essential home improvements) So…when I’m 100 and greeting people at Wal-Mart, I’ll at least have some good memories. That said, I can’t tell you the last time I used credit – if we can’t afford to pay cash, we don’t do it (and I say that fully realizing most people would feel that I shouldn’t do anything).
Student loan debt (for what degree): None – my husband went to the military and then to work after high school and I went back to community college later in life and paid as I went.
Anything else that's applicable to you: If my ex-husband dies before me, I’ll have about $6,000 in a money market that he must have forgotten about. When we divorced, he was supposed to liquidate all those accounts and give me half. He was an accountant and a SOB, so I never knew exactly what we had, but what I got seemed accurate (it paid for furniture, my wedding to M and part of this house, so I was OK with it). Lo and behold, a couple years ago, I found out we still have this money market account in both names. I tried to find him so we could liquidate/split it, but he’s missing. I get the statements here now, and the good part is he’s older than me, so I’m holding out hope he predeceases me and it will be mine.
Section Two: Income
Income Progression: I've been working in my field for a year and a half, my starting salary was $100,000. I did a salary story with the entire progression – long story short, I’ve made more, and I’ve made less, but this is probably about the average of the last five years.
My husband has been at his job for 14 years – he started there making around $75,000 and now makes $110,000. They usually give him a $10,000 bonus at the end of the year, but are always crying poverty if people ask for a raise. Prior to that, he worked for a company that paid very well and he had a 15-minute commute, but he got out one step ahead of their bankruptcy.
Main Job Monthly Take Home:
Me: $5,152
J: $6,230
Side Gig Monthly Take Home:
M is paid $1,300/month by our parish for serving as Youth Minister.
Any Other Monthly Income: $16.00
I get quarterly dividends on stock I was given when I was born (I may not have been born into money, but apparently my grandparents had friends who thought this was a good baby gift). The last few were around $50, so I divided by 3.
Section Three: Expenses
Rent / Mortgage / HOA fees (please specify how you split it if living with a partner): $3,043, which includes the property taxes and homeowner's insurance
Savings contribution: $500/month without fail (my bank transfers $100 if we get over $500 in, so once each paycheck and once when we put the church check in). More if I feel the savings needs a boost.
Debt payments:

• Credit card #1: $350/month (this is about twice the minimum)
• Credit card #2: $375/month (minimum payment)
• Credit card #3: $200/month (minimum payment - this is the next one getting whacked when #1 is paid off)

Donations: OK – anyone who isn’t screaming because I owe $40K is going to start now.

• $300/month to the church in the “collection basket” (it’s electronic, but same diff)
• $100/month to the church building fund (last year of a five-year pledge, thankfully – if I hadn’t promised to pay it, I wouldn’t)
• $25/month to Habitat for Humanity
• $20/month to Citymeals on Wheels
• ~$50/month to various other charities
• ~$100/month in food for the church food drive (we don’t have a food pantry, but collect food every week and anyone from the neighborhood can come take some. The rest is donated to several food pantries and soup kitchens in the Diocese).
• As far as volunteer hours, M and I both teach Religious Ed. I'm on the Parish Council and co-social media manager of the parish (basically, I schedule Facebook). M also videotapes the 5:00 Mass and the children’s worship message each week and uploads it to the parish YouTube channel.

Electric: $110
Gas (stove/hot water): $50
Oil: $250/month in the winter
Wifi/Cable: $179
Cellphone: $252 for both of us (I get mine expensed except $26 for my phone payment)
Subscriptions:

• $.99/month for iCloud Storage
• $545/month for life insurance for both of us, plus $202 quarterly for the life insurance policies we took out when we bought the house
• $17/month for NY Times online
• $10.86/month for Ring video doorbell
• $12.99/month for Netflix
• $9.99/month for Spotify (I think M gets reimbursed for this, because he has it for Youth Ministry)
• $119/year for Amazon Prime (yes, I know, I am an awful person)

Car payment / insurance: $295/month for my car (leased). My husband is driving a 10-year old car that is paid off. $128/month for auto insurance
Lawn care: $50/month
Commuting: Now that we’re in COVID times, I’ve been buying a 10-trip off peak railroad ticket every five days for $78.75. Pre-COVID, M and I each bought a monthly ticket for $270, and I took the subway most days for an additional $100/month. I fill up the car about once a month (~$36) and M fills his about every other week (~$70/month)
Saturday, September 26, 2020
7:45 am: Up and at ‘em! I get up, get coffee, check emails and social media and start the day.
8:00 am: M leaves the house for a long list of errands, the payment for which will be shown below. I put in a load of laundry and discover…a leak! There is a large pipe between our powder room sink (which I used when I woke up) and the outside world that runs through the basement and is apparently leaking. Yay whee. If you get one thing from this diary, let it be these words of wisdom – don’t buy an old house! No beautiful feature is worth the aggravation! I get the water (I hope it’s water) cleaned up, a load of laundry in, take a shower, do some picking up around the house, get dressed in a Rangers t-shirt and cut off distressed jeans, do my makeup (Olay microsculpting serum and Miracle Blur over the bottom of my face, pink, gray, and violet eyeshadows, a swipe of foundation under my eyes, black eyeliner, black mascara, and dark brown eye pencil. This is standard everyday makeup for me and will be repeated each day. I put volumizing mousse in my hair and blow dry it (also routine).
In the meantime, M gets a haircut ($30 including tip), sets up the video equipment at church, goes to CVS for passport photos that he needs for an application ($18.87), and goes to the religious goods store for a book of the Liturgy of the Hours ($42.31). He is starting formation for the diaconate (the process of becoming a Deacon in the Catholic Church) today, and they said he’ll need that book. He also needs the photos for his application, and he stops at the bank for two money orders – one to send with the background check request and one for his high school transcript ($26). On the way home, he picks up breakfast (brunch?) for us – classic New York BEC, SPK (bacon, egg, and cheese on a roll with salt, pepper and ketchup) for him and egg whites, turkey and swiss cheese on a whole wheat wrap for me ($10.78), as well as cigs for him and vape cartridges for me ($36).
The washing machine isn’t causing any additional leakage, so I move the wash to the dryer and start moving the winter clothes from the portable closet in front of the leaking pipe upstairs (they’re not wet, but we’re going to have to move the closet when the plumber comes).
After eating the egg sandwiches, we get changed for deacon class – I look like a good church lady in black slacks, a black and white flowered shirt with a black tank underneath, and black sandals with a chunky 2.5” heel. M goes with the classic golf shirt and dockers. While we’re getting changed, he mentions he needs new underwear, so I whip out the phone and order him some ($18.64).
6:30 pm: Home from deacon class and Mass and the groceries show up! I ordered them yesterday, but I don’t think the charge went through till today, so here goes. Asparagus, broccoli, celery, bananas, cucumber, lime, grape tomatoes, peaches, carrots, potatoes, spinach, lettuce, zucchini, frozen burgers, ground turkey, chicken breasts, whole chicken, fried chicken and a pot pie for J’s lunches, yogurt, sugar free pumpkin spice creamer (YES! I’ve been looking for it for weeks!), milk, heavy cream, OJ, k-cups, frozen green beans, cauliflower rice, stuffing mix, microwave rice, cake mix (the good ones were on sale), chicken broth, potato chips, and trash bags. Spent $154.95 including delivery, saved $14.50 (very low for me), tipped the delivery guy $10.
7:00 pm: After putting away all that food, what do we do? If you guessed order dinner, you’d be right! I don’t cook on Saturday unless we’re having company. We order from a new taco place – three each and “Mexican wings”. The wings were meh, but the tacos ranged from good to outstanding. $53.78 including tip. After dinner, M starts post-production of the Mass video and I do some laundry, watch the NASCAR race and the hockey game, and play games on my iPad. Remember, you’ll be old someday too!
11:00 pm: I go to the basement to pick up laundry and remember I wanted to order a new garden flag (this isn’t as random as it sounds – all my seasonal decorations are stored in the basement). I have had a cart set up for days with two garden flags ($6.99 each) and four magnetic mailbox covers for my parents for Christmas ($11.99 each) – they’ve talked about having a different one for each season, and I saw them when I was looking for a garden flag. Total with tax and free shipping: $61.94. I love Christmas and generally spend way too much on gifts so I’m trying to start shopping before December and at least spread out the pain. We went to a crafts fair a few weeks ago and I picked up a few things and now I’ve got this done – go me!!
12:30 pm: The hockey game is over (2 OT!) and I go to bed. M is napping waiting for his video production to finish.
Daily Total: $463.27
Sunday, September 27
7:00 am: The alarm goes off – ugh. It’s the first day of Religious Ed (virtual, but I have to do a 9:45 zoom with my 4th graders). Coffee, social media, shower, dress, makeup. Put on a black eyelet dress because we’re going back to church today so M can videotape First Communion. Do the usual makeup/hair thing.
10:30 am: My 4th graders are great and we’re ready to roll (M has on a shirt and tie in honor of the First Communion), and we’re off to Mass. Drop off the food I bought for our food pantry last week and help him video. Of course, the kids are adorable!
12:00 noon: We’re starving after church, so we stop at our favorite local pizza place on the way home. Get a variety of slices for $22.62, including a tip (we’re getting it to go, but I’m tipping everywhere, because I know restaurants have been hurt badly by the pandemic. These folks are in NYC and still haven’t opened inside dining.)
1:30 pm: Ate, ran more laundry, changed into the jeans I wore yesterday and a Yankees t-shirt and call the nail place. Of all my expenses, nails are probably the most non-negotiable – I’ve been getting my nails done for 40 years, and when I couldn’t do so during the lockdown, I was miserable. They can take me right away, which makes me happy.
3:00 pm: All 20 nails done – gel on the fingers and a regular pedicure with callus removal ($75 plus $15 tip = $90). I went with an autumn theme and got copper on the fingers and bronze toes – the nail polish looked in the jar like it would match the toes, but it doesn’t. Stop at CVS for eye cream (Olay for tired eyes) and mascara (L’Oreal Voluminous) - $27 with coupons. M asked me to pick up cigs on the way home, so I do, as well as vape cartridges, which I don’t technically need yet, but it will save a trip later in the week ($36).
3:30 pm: While at the nail place, I saw that one of our favorite local restaurants had a fire, which consumed an entire block of restaurants and small businesses. The Chamber of Commerce is doing a GoFundMe, and I donate $25 to the cause - $28.75 including the charge. I also notice that the weekly charge for my church donation went through ($75).
11:30 pm: Took a quick nap (the highlight of my week every week), put some fall decorations out, had our family Zoom call, laundry, got the end of the winter clothes moved upstairs, had dinner (roast chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and roasted asparagus), made an apple crisp (I’m not a huge dessert person but M is and I like making desserts, so it works), watched baseball, football, the NASCAR race, and basketball, and took a quick shower. Bring a Light & Fit Toasted Coconut Vanilla yogurt (the best!) to bed, finish my book (“Next Stop, Chancey”) and find the next in the series on my iPad – I’ve read them all before, but I’m in the mood for something cozy, especially after reading about the Current Occupant’s taxes – ugh!) , and turn off the lights around midnight.
Daily Total: $279.37
Monday, September 28
6:45 am: I work from home M/W/F and so I can sleep in. Relatively speaking, anyway. Get dressed in a sleeveless top and shorts (despite the fall decorations, fall nails, and roast chicken/apple crisp, it feels rather summery out there), do makeup, have some coffee and scroll through emails/socials, move yet another load of laundry (I’m trying to get it all done before the plumber comes), find the number for the plumber and give it to M to call, get the trash out, and boil some eggs for breakfast this week. I’m sitting in front of the computer by 8:15, which is ok (technically, my hours are 8:30-5:30 – it’s usually more like 8:30-6:00, and on WFH days, starting at 7:30 is not unheard of). M drops off the car at the shop – I think I forgot to mention this, but he mentioned yesterday that when he was driving around Saturday, there was a grinding noise when he backed up. More joy to come, I’m sure.
9:45 am: I hear M on the phone with the garage – apparently, they can get a used part and do the job for $450. Not great, but it’s better than it might have been! He works from home basically every day except when he has to see customers, but thankfully we’re separated enough that we can hear each other but it’s not intrusive.
10:30 am: Between cursing at people on the phone, M calls the plumber and I grab some cheese and more coffee! I’d tell you about my job, but honestly, it’s not worth talking about. Basically, I go to meetings, take notes on meetings, and send follow-ups (I do other things, but that’s most of it). When I get off my 11:00 am meeting, I’ll find out when the plumber is coming. You guys are getting a much more exciting week than I expected!
12:30 pm: What a miserable day – it seems like everyone is annoyed! Take a break to eat a slice of leftover pizza and a Diet Coke (M finishes some rotisserie chicken from last week). He says the plumber may come today to look at the situation but can’t do the work till tomorrow.
6:00 pm: Keep my head down and get some work done in the afternoon and knock off for the day. Run downstairs and make dinner – “tacos” with strips of beef grilled with Korean barbecue sauce, shredded cabbage, cheddar cheese, pineapple salsa, cucumber slices, and lime inside warmed tortillas. Delicious, if I say so myself!
7:30 pm: I get on a Zoom faith sharing meeting and M gets on a Zoom religious ed class.
11:59 pm: Contemplated Sunday’s Gospel with my small group, watched Tampa Bay win the Stanley Cup, took a shower and set clothes out for tomorrow, and off to bed. M picked up the car after Religious Ed.
Daily Total: $450.00
Tuesday, September 29
5:45 am: Ugh. Up and out – I’m wearing a green dress with a black jacket and have black slingbacks in my bag. I have to walk 30 short blocks and five long blocks once I get off the train, so I’m traveling light. I used to take the subway to my office, but since COVID, I try to limit that as much as possible.
7:45 am: Off the railroad and walk uptown. I actually don’t mind the walk, because when I WFH, I walk very little – at the beginning of the lockdown, I had a nice walking routine, but lately the work seems to start the minute I wake up, so walking to work takes care of getting in those STEPS! I forgot my boiled eggs and I’m starving, so I end up buying an egg sandwich. $5.43
12:30 pm: Because I only go to the city twice a week and I have to walk uptown with all my work stuff, I don’t bring lunch often (pre-pandemic, I used to bring breakfast and lunch every day, but I also took the subway). Decide to run to Pret and my boss and co-worker both ask me to pick something up. Of course, no one (including me) has anything but a $20, so they both say they’ll get me next time. I get my favorite chicken parm wrap and a Diet Coke. $32
12:45 pm: I look at my personal email and discover that J’s car registration needs to be renewed. Hop on the DMV website and take care of that. $158.50. I also realize I never took out the sausages for tonight’s dinner and call M to ask him to do so. He mentions the plumber has still not shown up.
5:45 pm: Leave a little early to get to the Fed Ex office and make my train home. I’m a little later than I’d like to be and it’s raining, so I get the subway, which is thankfully empty, reasonably clean, and quick. $2.75
7:15 pm: M picks me up at the train station and mentions that he was so busy working that he didn’t take the sausages out. He asks me what I want to eat and we end up at Wendy’s. Cheeseburger, fries, and (surprise, surprise) a Diet Coke. He gets the same thing, but bigger. $19.75
11:30 pm: Avoid the debate by watching the Yankees pound the Indians. Usual routine (plus ironing a shirt for J, because he has to go to a customer tomorrow) and off to sleep. I’m up to Book 3 in the Chancey series, for those keeping score.
Daily Total: $218.43
Wednesday, September 29
5:30 am: Double ugh. Woke up to use the bathroom and couldn’t get back to sleep, so here we are. Get dressed (long-sleeved Yankees t-shirt, straight leg jeans), do the face, have some coffee, and try to avoid the fact that my boss sent me an email at 11:00 pm last night looking for changes to a document, which I said I would do today. Get the trash out, pick up a little around the house, and get to work by 7:00. OH, and despite the lack of plumber and his lack of general motivation, M moved the plastic closet…in front of the washing machine! Glad I bought him underwear, because I won’t be doing laundry any time soon. Now I’m wondering if he looked at the menu (I am an obsessive meal planner and post it on the fridge weekly) and that’s why he didn’t take the sausages out – he’s avoiding zoodles! He can run but he can’t hide – I have zucchini and I’m going to spiralize it sooner or later!
8:00 am: The document my boss needed is out, the agenda for our 9:00 am meeting is done, the morning emails are sorted (for now), and I got a link to our parish survey up on the Facebook page, so I make an egg and cheese on a tortilla and eat at my desk.
12:50 pm: Wednesday is conference call hell – I have recurring calls every Wednesday at 9:00, 10:30, and 11:30, and the added fun today of a 10:00. There’s also a webinar every Wednesday that I try to tune into. Grab some chips and a Diet Coke and go check it out.
2:15 pm: Still no damn plumber, but I’ll let M worry about that when he’s home tomorrow. My garden flags arrived, so that’s good. Hoping to get out and put the pumpkin one out before it gets dark, but the way today is going, that might not actually happen. However, I realize I never put dinner in the crockpot. Luckily, it only takes 3-4 hours on high, so I take care of that. It’s Tuscan Chicken with sun-dried tomatoes and spinach. By 2:30, I’m back at my desk with another Diet Coke and hard at it. Nightmares of rescheduling meetings, missing documents, etc.
6:45 pm: Still at my desk! OK, I took some time to send an email to the parish webmaster about the survey, update this, and read the R29 money diary of the day. But overall, I’ve been working with no apparent end in sight – I could easily be here all night, but I won’t be because (a) I’m falling asleep at my desk and (b) I have a 7:30 Religious Ed teachers meeting. Hopefully I won’t fall asleep during that. Make a list of things for my boss and I to review tomorrow and finish prepping dinner.
7:15 pm: Dinner was delicious – we had the chicken with rice for M and cauliflower rice for me, sautéed broccoli, and a basic salad (bagged spring mix, cherry tomatoes, cucumber). Now off to Zoom!
11:45 pm: The Yankees game is still on, but I’m showered, my clothes are set out for tomorrow, and I’m fading. Turn off the light and hope for a win.
Daily Total: $0.00 (bet you didn’t see that coming!)
Thursday, October 1
5:45 am: You know it…ugh. Get up, coffee, very quick scroll through the Yankees score/e-mail/social media. Get dressed in a black v-neck sweater, black and gray plaid skirt, and black jacket (not the same one I wore the other day). Am grateful the skirt fits – I gained some weight and am trying to resist buying clothes. Make sure I have the right shoes in my bag – I’m wearing high-heeled gray suede Mary Janes today.
8:15 am: At my desk and ready to go – I remembered to bring 2 hard-boiled eggs today, which I eat with coffee while looking through emails.
12:30 pm: Call after call after call, but I have a half-hour to eat. Run to the fancy buffet place that just re-opened for 2 meatballs, brussels sprouts, broccoli, salad, and the inevitable Diet Coke ($15.75). Manage to eat before my 1:00 pm call – go me!
3:30 pm: Leave to go to a job site and pick something up that has to be shipped to Italy. Something that's almost as tall as me, but thankfully not heavy. Taxi down there because I’m in a hurry and I can get reimbursed ($14.04, including tip), expensed.
4:00 pm: I get a cab to the Fed Ex office – thankfully the first one I see is a minivan, so I fit in just fine ($12.74, including tip), expensed.
5:30 pm: Well, that was harder than it needed to be – the Fed Ex office I went to didn’t have a box that would fit the item, so they suggested another Fed Ex office about 6 blocks away, so I had to walk through midtown Manhattan carrying an object almost as tall as me (it's 5' long and I'm 5'3" tall) while dodging oblivious people. Thankfully, the other office had my box, and they were super-sweet and helpful, but it took them forever to get it done. Bought the box and bubble wrap, which will be expensed (I brought the Fed Ex label, but I don’t remember the account number) ($43.54). Get a nice early train home, though!
6:45 pm: Wow, we’re eating when I’m usually getting the train! Cheeseburgers, tots (tater for J, cauliflower for me), green beans, and vinegar coleslaw with the end of the shredded cabbage. Get the kitchen cleaned and the dishwasher run and settle in to watch the Jets – I’m not holding out much hope, but you never know!
11:30 pm: I’ve showered, set out clothes for me and M (he’s seeing customers tomorrow), I prepped for Youth Group, which I’m leading because he’ll be working, and the Jets are winning, so I decide it’s time to sleep. Up to Book 5 of the Chancey series. I find series usually go downhill after about the third or fourth book, but I’m not sure what I feel like reading, so here we are. OH, at some point M must have gone to the convenience store, because there are vape cartridges on the table ($36).
Daily Total: $122.07; $70.32 expensed
Friday, October 02, 2020
6:00 am: Wake up, grab coffee, find out the Jets lost after all, do the morning e-mail/social media scroll. Leaving early to deal with that work errand has left me with a ton of stuff to do, so I get dressed (long-sleeved v-neck gray t-shirt, white tank because the v-neck is halfway to my belly button, dark wash skinny jeans), put out the trash, peel two hard-boiled eggs, and head to my desk.
12:30 pm: As always, call after call after call. Plus a bit of aggravation when my boss asks me at 10:30 for an agenda for the 11:00 call, which I sent him at about 7:30, and which he returns at 10:59 with the formatting looking like nothing on earth. Yay whee! And a project was mentioned that he forgot to tell me I’d do. So in case I thought I’d have nothing to do (that never happens on Fridays), that’s not happening. Anyway, between calls, I run downstairs for the lunch of champions – a Hot Pocket and a Diet Coke. Just that kind of day.
6:15 pm: Realize I have to run Youth Group at 7 and I haven’t even done my haimakeup. Get that done, heat up some frozen cauliflower rice/broccoli/cheese combination and add some leftover chicken. With a green salad on the side, surprisingly yummy.
8:15 pm: I am not a good youth leader…couldn’t get anyone talking about the subject of the day, which I thought would be a good one. I did make them laugh a few times, so that’s something.
M is going to have some expenses because he went to see customers today, but I don’t know what they are and his company will reimburse him, so I’m just leaving them out.
Daily Total: $0.00
This is the Week That Was:
Food + Drink: $326.06
Fun / Entertainment: $108 (if people can put drugs in as entertainment, I’m putting our nicotine in)
Home + Health: $61.94
Clothes + Beauty: $165.64
Transport: $638.03 (some of it will be expensed)
Other: $234.47
Lastly, reflect on your diary! How do you feel about your spending? Was this a normal week for you? Has this inspired you to make changes or has it given you a “wow I’m doing pretty good” confidence boost? Is there anything you’re actively working on? No need to answer any or all these questions but just use this space to write any thoughts you have!
This was a fairly normal week except for the car breaking and needing to be registered – we're saving some now that we WFH more because M will not bring food from home, but I used to bring breakfast and lunch at least four days a week. I know we should make changes, but I also know we don’t want to – honestly, if you looked at the way I lived 15 years ago, I’ve made a lot of changes already. We’re working on the credit cards – I’ve gotten rid of several already (paid off, not just moved balances around) and we don’t use them at all anymore (I can honestly say I don’t remember the last thing I charged). The bad news is that M’s car is on its last legs, and so I see car payments in our future. Hopefully, he’ll get something used – we have my car when we want to look good going somewhere (mine isn’t super-fancy, it just wasn’t hit by a bus and full of stuff for his job).
OH, and the plumber still hasn’t shown up! But that will be for next week’s expenses.

Link to Previous Tales From 2+2: Poker player steals $1m+ chips and tries to sell it on 2+2 poker forums
More Tales From 2+2: A Very Controversial $70k prop bet
Tales from 2+2: Homelessness, Grinding and the Biggest Shot of a Grinder’s Life: The Jared Huggins Story

The Blossoming of TV Poker

The Year is 2006. Online poker is thriving. Partypoker has the highest traffic of any poker site but Pokerstars are gaining new players quickly with aggressive marketing strategies. Lots of poker sites are investing heavily into marketing and one key place to channel their advertising budget is TV. New innovations, improved graphics and increasing funding meant that poker TV is at an all-time peak of popularity.
40% of the the 2006 WSOP Main Event’s attendance is from online sites and poker sites are offering large amounts of cash for players on TV to wear an advertising patch. According to Dan Goldman’s blog, Pokerstars spent over $730,000 on WSOP players’ gift bags. The WSOP is seeing more TV time and this year the $50k HORSE event is added to the TV schedule alongside the WSOP main event. This year’s $50k WSOP HORSE final table saw some huge names including Chip Reese, Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius and Doyle Brunson.

The Path of a New Player

In Finland, Mikael Paisting is watching the 2006 WSOP on TV. He enjoys watching poker broadcasts and is fascinated by the game. It’s a very common story for players to catch an interest by watching poker TV and sign up with to one of the many poker sites available. He chooses to deposit on Partypoker. Mikael is a committed learner and player. He reads several poker books from well-known authors such as Dan Harrington and David Sklansky. He also watches many training videos. Like many players starting in online poker he begins at the microstakes cash tables.
Microstakes are a rite of passage for many online poker players. The limits range from 2nl to 10nl, so the standard buy in is $2-10. Some will play microstakes for weeks, months or even years improving their game and increasing their bankroll so they can move up to small stakes, 25nl and above. Some players see the microstakes as a job and play as many tables as they can to eke out a living wage. Some players have never played microstakes and skip it entirely for higher stakes. Mikael starts to play and doesn’t do well, this is normal for many beginners, even those who study. However, over the next few weeks Mikael continues to lose. Months go by and Mikael still hasn’t turned a profit. He discovers problems with tilt and often takes his frustration out in the chat box. An example of his rage:

Paisting:THAT IS NOT NORMAL OMG!! JUST UNBELIEVABLE

Mikael doesn’t play 10nl very often and spends the majority of him time playing 2nl and 5nl. He continues to multitable cash games on Partypoker but he just can’t win. He starts to lose big, thousands of dollars, mostly at 2nl which is known as the softest cash game on the internet.

Getting Noticed

Mikael continues to play long sessions over the next five years, he claims to play 5-7 days a week for 4-8 hours a day. By 2011 he had played 2 and a half million hands while playing 6 to 9 cash tables at one time. Mikael is still mostly playing 2nl and is down a colossal amount: $7000. Mikael has been suffering from major tilt problems and has a very wild and noticeable style of playing microstakes. He starts to get noticed on 2+2, a very popular poker forum. A player posts a link to his PTR graph, a site which tracks online cash games. They are shocked at his losses over so many hands:

yegor: wow such a massive fail
he played 2.5m hands at 2nl and 5nl and he's losing
Donkey111: I remember him from my 2NL days.
often goes on some massive tilt sessions and spews like 20 BI in 500 hands by shoving any 2 cards preflop.

He even gets hate from his PTR account where he is ridiculed on his profile comments, he also replies:

VELAir26: Spend your time with family, friends or other hobbies instead
Paisting: im fine with this you stupid idiot

Mikael continues to play his reckless and tilting style over the years. By 2014, he has been playing for 8 years and is down five figures at microstakes; he starts to look for excuses for how much he has lost. He posts a thread on 2+2 detailing how he feels that he wins at the start of the month and then inevitably starts to lose. He asks how he can take legal action against Partypoker. His fellow posters tease him:

5thStreethog: Did the thought ever cross your mind that it might be possible that the reason you cant beat NL2 in over a million hands might be because you arent very good at poker?

An Attempt at Redemption

2019 comes and Mikael Paisting has been playing microstakes for 13 years, and steadily losing a lot of money. He got a new computer in late 2018 and has been grinding away on it. Mikael is getting mentioned more on 2+2 and he is well known on the tables of Partypoker as he drops stack after stack. Many players on Partypoker furiously try to get on his tables to call his tilt shoves; when Mikael is present other player’s stacks can get as high as $100 at 2nl as he shoves buy in after buy in to button steals. Some were said to be using seating scripts to instantly be placed on a table with Paisting. At this point he is feeling very low. But despite years of losing money and insane tilting he is determined to improve. Mikael is aware of his losses and has a fierce desire to make back the money he has lost since he’s started tracking on his new PC.
He decides get help and he looks to 2+2, the very same forum that had mocked him over the last decade. He logs in as Paisting, his last name. He starts a new thread, types out a post and chooses a title: 'Biggest loser in online poker history wants to grind $16k'. He posts this thread in the sub-forum Poker Goals & Challenges, a place where players post their goals and try to update their thread with their progress. He posts graphs of his losses from his database on his PC. He starts the thread by posting some shocking graphs of $8700 lost at 2nl, $6000 lost at 5nl and $800 lost at 10nl. At 2nl he had an incredible rate of -170BB each 100 hands. The final graph of his microstakes losses posted show $15,000 lost over 365,000 hands. An average loss of $75 a day.
The 2+2 poker community are stunned by the graphs:

HorseofHell: I'm actually shocked it's possible to lose this much at 2nl
Mahsjdj: This can't be real can it?

Mikael posts about the hard work he’s put into poker and mentions that has watched videos, read many instructional books and is honest with his astounding losses:

Paisting: I've lost literally all my money including all my life savings to online poker. I want to try one last time to win those money back and little bit of extra. That's why $16k. What I need is support and guiding.

The community react to his plan to grind all the money back at microstakes:

Fodersneso: This is really disturbing.
Why on earth would you try to grind this all back? Losing at this rate is traumatizing. You're going to grind out 3000 BIs @nl5 now or what's the plan? Really curious how you think you can turn this pile of insanity around...

The community show disbelief and doubt that his story is real but several posters claim that what he says is true. He has been active in Finnish forums for more than 10 years and players starts to share hand histories and stories about his playstyle. He posts about his regret of picking the game up:

Paisting: Never had a winning week in 13 years.
If it were possible to go back ten years I would say to myself "Do not never play single one hand!"

He then goes on to tell 2+2 posters a disturbing source of his funds for his staggering 2nl losses:

Paisting: I've taken huge amount of fast loans.

He sheds a little light into his personal life:

Paisting: My age and relationships has nothing to do with this. But not working, no kids or wife and middle aged. What I have is time to play.
I get a little unemployment benefit that goes straight to the rent. My eating costs are very little because I'm only eating one meal per day. There are times when I must take more fast loans if need of clothes, unexpected bills, sickness etc. That's why getting back those $16k is so important to me.
No disability, never played anything else than poker or lottery when pots are bigger, maybe 5 times in year. Playing poker does not give me any excitement or I'm not cheering won pots.

Posters try to give him strategy advice, they try to persuade him time and time again that shoving 100+ blinds to a minsteal isn’t a good idea. Some others question his sanity and tell him to quit:

FazendeiroBH: Not trolling, I´m actually serious here. You lost an absurd amount of money playing the easiest stake in the world (nl2). You keep losing doing the same faulty strategy. No book ever said you should jam 100 bb preflop rfi. It´s quite obvious there is something wrong with you and your brain, and the more you delay seeking professional care for your mental problems, the worst it´s gonna be for you.

Paitsing updates his thread with highlight hands from his cash sessions. He seems to cherry pick hands to post and will only post hands where he loses all ins as a 70-95% favourite. He delusion leads him to blame the site, his luck and the other micro grinders. He often writes about specific players and gives his opinion on how badly they play. He often quotes their HUD stats and wide calling ranges while ignoring that they are probably adjusting heavily to his own playstyle. Some time passes and he discloses that he has lost almost $500 at 2nl since starting the thread three weeks ago.
He updates his followers with the first monthly graph of the thread from his 2nl play in April 2019. He plays for 90 hours in April and his average daily loss is $50, 25 buy ins each day. 2+2 players start to analyse the graph. They notice that there are several breakeven spots where he may be playing reasonable poker but also huge 150 buy in downswings, some drops in the graph are so steep that he is losing about a buy in every 5 hands for periods of hundreds of hands. He says:

Paitsing: Only trying to get my money back from guys who are playing nl2 forever and never moving up. When I started poker long time ago I tought it's exciting to read watch videos if it gives me more money. After 2 years figured out it's just sitting on computer like in work and if I'm someday +-0 never ever playing this stupid game. This is like war.

The thread goes on like this for almost a year. The thread repeats itself over and over. He will post a few selective bad beats, ignore good advice and berate his microstakes tablemates. A fellow microstakes grinder makes his first appearance in the thread: 6betpot. 6Betpot would play at Paisting's tables and often win many buy ins, 6Betpot would go on to post highly contrasting hand histories to the bad beats that Paisting posts, he would also reveal Paisting’s preflop 3 bet is around 30%. Some players would criticize 6Betpot for predatory behavior but 6Betpot would maintain that he would try to persuade Paisting to stop playing in a spewy manner. Someone asks to see the hands and 6Betpot posts some, here is one:

888 Poker - $0.02 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
BTN: 250.5 BB
SB (Paisting): 425.5 BB
BB: 101.5 BB
UTG: 100 BB
MP: 106.5 BB
CO: 84.5 BB
Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) BTN has AdQs
fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 2 BB, Paisting raises to 425.5 BB and is all-in, fold, BTN calls 248.5 BB and is all-in
Flop: (502 BB, 2 players) Kh4s4c
Turn: (502 BB, 2 players) 3h
River: (502 BB, 2 players) Jc
BTN shows AdQs (One Pair, Fours)

Paisting shows 5s Js (Two Pair, Jacks and Fours)

Paisting wins 471 BB<
Later in the thread Paisting would reveal his line of thinking during hands like these; a poster asked why he though 3 betting hands like J5 was a good idea. Paisting replies:

Paisting: If you don't want them to run over you, you must do something. Blind play is very important and you can't let them run over you. When 80+ habit stealer gets shoves straight to his face he must learn at some point that I'm not giving blinds.

Many tried to reason with him and show him clearly why this was wrong, he not only refuted their strategy but would argue against them, often citing his opponent’s HUD stats.
Later on in the thread Mikael posts horrifying news. He explains that he didn’t transfer hands from his old computer to his new computer. The graphs he posted at the start of the thread only showed the tip of the iceberg. He reveals that $16k loss from the graphs was from just 7 months of play!:

Paisting: That 16k is in 209 days and in about 1 year as you can see from the first post. Big part of my losings has left to hard drive of my old crashed computer. That's past and I don't wanna think about it anymore. Main goal is this database I have here in my computer. But yes what I have been repeating many times, moving to 888 poker has sky rocketed my losses although I can play only 6 tables compared to party's 9 tables.

Posters speculate that his lifetime microstakes losses probably amount to six figures:

SpinMeRightRound: I mean if he's lost $20k in the last year, and he's been doing this for more than 10 years, he may have lost $200k or more.

In late 2019, Paisting claims that there was a ring of players were colluding against him. He goes on to say that the new site he plays on, 888, were asking for hand histories from certain players. He showed emails of his communications and posted that 8 players had had their account frozen. He also shows screenshots that his account is temporarily frozen during the investigation. Posters speculated:

CrunchyBlack: Pretty sure they think you're chip dumping lmao
.isolated: They think you're chip dumping to him. Funniest. Thing. Ever. The irony here is nearly palpable.

2020: The Struggle Continues

At the end of the year Paisting posts his 2019 graphs. He says that he hasn’t had a winning week yet and he’s still committed to making back 2019’s losses. His graphs show down 12k from 320k hands of 2nl in 2019.
In January 2020 he continues to post regularly and makes comments about him hunting down players worse than him:

Paisting: When you hunt really bad player (yes enzet there are plenty of worst player than me on 888 look those hand histories really carefully) hours and hours and wait good hand just to site let them to suck out it is affecting your game really badly.

He posts about his continuing struggle to win back the $16k:

Paisting: I have years dedicated for this project and anything back from that amount is winning to me. At this point it’s impossible to make any profit because of horrible suckouts.

He also posts about the high interest loans he’s taken out:

Paisting: I have huge amounts of loans that are basically all taken for poker. I don't eat much and all my other costs are very low.
And because of those loans I must get back so much money that is possible and these suck outs must stop.

February 2020 arrives and he posts his January chart, the worst posted yet. He takes a gigantic loss of $1,550 at an eye-watering rate of 210bb/100 hands. Often when he posts monthly graphs he would highlight that he ran a few buy ins below EV when he would be down hundreds of buy ins for the month.
The months pass and the cycle continues. Paisting posts the usual bad beats, posters berate him and try to give him advice and Paisting resists their efforts. Here is one of many similar hands posted in February:

888Poker, Hold'em No Limit - $0.01/$0.02 - 6 players
UTG: $1.46 (73 bb) Paisting (MP): $7.45 (373 bb) CO: $15.44 (772 bb) BU: $2.00 (100 bb) SB: $3.47 (174 bb) BB: $2.00 (100 bb)
Pre-Flop: ($0.03) 1 fold, Paisting(MP) raises to $7.45 (all-in), CO calls $7.45, 3 players fold
Flop: ($14.93) 6c7c4d (2 players, 1 all-in)
Turn: ($14.93) Ts (2 players, 1 all-in)
River: ($14.93) 8h (2 players, 1 all-in)
Total pot: $14.93 (Rake: $0.93)
Showdown: Paisting (MP) shows 7dTc (two pair, Tens and Sevens) (CO) shows JsJc (a pair of Jacks) Paisting (MP) wins $14

March comes and the regular monthly graph is posted. The uploaded graph shows is he down $1900 or 950 buy ins for last month. Mikael refutes that he is a gambling addict:

Paisting: 888 has given many 10 dollar bonuses to me play slots. I have never played them and in fact my account has 20 dollars freeplay bonus to play their slots. I will not use those money now or in future. So that's gambling addict to you.

April and May roll by and the monthly graphs are posted. He played fewer hands than normal, 43,000. But is down $1,250, all at 2nl.
In June he posts the usual monthly graph with -$1900 and it’s the lowest win rate he’s posted before, a colossal -335b/100hands, the graph has some alarmingly steep downswings with one section where he loses $500 in 1000 hands. That’s a loss of one buy in every 4 hands. Getting these monthly updates shows how quickly he loses money at 2nl and collaborates with earlier estimations that he is likely down more than $100k at microstakes over the past 14 years. Approximations indicate that Mikael has paid over $20k in rake to poker sites over the years.

The End, for Now

Mikael is still playing microstakes to this day. His poker story isn’t over yet but so far it is a sad one. My previous two Tales from 2+2 stories had mostly happy endings but not this one. This story is like a car falling down a cliff and it hasn’t hit the bottom yet.
Let this story be a lesson that poker isn’t for everyone. Players with addiction or mental issues should reconsider if the game is best for their lives. Serious poker players should consider bankroll management and how tilt affects their winrate if they do choose to play.
Seek help if you think you or others need it.
Original thread (Still active)

All content here was discovered by the power autists of onaforums.net I don't take credit for anything. Feed Nana.
Proof of content:https://ibb.co/V9x7dkp
Joe Rogan used to have his own website and forum located at http://blog.joerogan.net and http://forums.joerogan.net/ but Rogan took it all down because of "problematic content" with him getting more famous, and because a few people, one in particular that Joe personally went after, had discovered he was frequenting gay leather bars.
This led to a build up before the site was finally shut down, with Joe himself having weirdo gay sperg outs, because fans call him gay. I now present to you, saved for your reading pleasure: The Joe Rogan Gay Freakout of January 11th, 2005.

Are you gay?

For the record, I’m not. If I was, I’m not sure that I would admit it, but I like to think I would.
Who knows?
The point is, I’m not, but I get accused of being gay all the time.
Most of it is either just jealousy from weak-minded guys, or wishful thinking from gay dudes, but it does come up.
The funniest example so far is this email I got the other day.
What’s really funny to me is when guys say that they KNOW I’m gay.
Now, I’ve met some gay dudes that were in the closet, and I actually know at least one right now. I guess if you live in a real conservative place, or if your parents were uptight it could really suck to be gay.
I mean really, it could happen to anyone. It’s just a genetic roll of the dice. I’m short and my hair is falling out.
Some people are gay. I personally couldn’t care less, and if you’re happy, I’m happy.
Don’t try to fuck me, and we can be friends.
But I guess since there’s so many people in the closet there’s always going to be a certain amount of people that don’t believe you if you say you’re straight.
That’s understandable.
I’ve been guilty of it myself. There’s been several times in my life where I’ve met a guy and was convinced that he was gay no matter what he said.
It’s sort of a game to play with your friends, really.
Let’s play the “what do you think?” game.
Often times your friends know EXACTLY what you’re talking about, and you don’t even have to say the word. You just look at them and say “You think?” and he’ll just nod his head and say “All day.”
You don’t even have to mention it again.
Sometimes it’s really fun, like if the guy is married or has kids.
Or even more fun if he’s some tightly wound conservative Christian who’s married and has kids. (Those are my personal favorite)
Sometimes you’ll find out a guy is gay and it’s a total shocker.
There’s this one guy we found out about that was a cage fighter. This guy was fucking huge. Big, giant, scary guy with a really hot girlfriend, too. The way it came out was really pretty funny. There was a cage fighting show that was featuring this particular gentleman, and they were trying to get some information on him for the press release, so the publicist went online and did a google search. Well, apparently this guy was not just gay, but was a gay pornstar and didn’t even bother to change his name when he started fighting.
Imagine the surprise when the first article she found on this guy wasn’t about his ability to inflict punishment, or his skill at choking men unconscious, but rather the fact that he was the winner of the “Hungriest Butt” contest.
Hungriest… butt.
Holy shit.
Surely this was a mistake. There’s no way this dominant alpha male would be playing for the other team.
Why, if we were living in ancient Rome this man would be leading an army into battle. He would be on horseback storming headfirst into the opposition, his broadsword felling bodies left and right, shouting out a fierce war cry.
He was a specimen, a warrior.
It must be confusion; perhaps another man has the same name…
Yet, there he was on Al Gore’s internet with a big fat cock in his mouth.
Not just that, but one in the pooper, too.
250 lbs of alpha male muscle, and there he was with two guys using his body to play a game of Chinese finger handcuffs.
It looked like he was enjoying it, too.
Who knows, maybe he was just acting.
Now, I read an article in Esquire once about a dude that claimed he was straight, but was a gay porn star. He said he was doing it because there’s a lot of money in it, which is a little shaky.
I mean… how much money are we talking about?
This guy had done dozens of films.
How much money is a lot of money for gay sex if you’re not gay?
I don’t know about you, but I would have to get so much fucking money that I didn’t ever have to do a second film.
They say that everyone has their price, but there are some people that claim there’s not enough money in the world to get them to do certain things, like gay sex.
For the most part I think they say that because no one is really offering them a ton of money for gay sex. It’s not really going to happen, so why think realistically about the proposition and risk ridicule?
But what if someone really was offering?
Now, if you’re straight, what if someone came around and offered a TON of money for one gay sexual experience.
I’m talking about a fucking TON of money.
Like 10 billion dollars.
Would you take it?
You would have to be a fucking idiot if you didn’t take it.
One hour of misery and you and all your friends could live like the Sultan of Brunei for the rest of your lives.
Shit, you could write a book about the experience and make another 10 million on top of that.
“I’ve got my price” would shoot to the top of the bestseller lists.
It would be the subject of debate for hundreds of talk shows across the country.
The people would be divided on the subject, but again I believe it’s all bullshit. If the offer were real, almost everyone would take it.
It wouldn’t mean you were gay. It would just mean that you let a gay guy fuck you.
Would you do it?
Just think of what you could do if you had Bill Gates type money. Are you fucking kidding me?
You wouldn’t suffer for an hour for that?
I sure as fuck would do it. Everyone has a price, and that’s mine.
For 10 Billions Dollars you can fuck my ass.
You can do whatever the fuck you want with me for one hour.
I have a high tolerance to pain, and my will is strong. I’ll get through it. I have vision, and that’s a ton of fucking money.
I mean think about it, how long is an hour?
It’s all relative, really.
Hours go by all the time and you don’t even notice.
It’s not really that long, but it can sure seem that long when you’re suffering
How long would an hour of gay sex feel like?
I would imagine it would probably be the longest measurement of an hour ever.
You remember when you were a kid and it was almost the end of the school day, and that last hour would just fucking crawl by?
I bet it would be quite a bit slower than that.
But you know what?
It would eventually end. It would be just like any other hour for most people, but your life would be different forever.
For your neighbor next door watching Fear Factor, his hour went by like it always does. He doesn’t even remember most of it.
He’s sitting in front of the TV screen watching me encourage some high school dropout to suck down a plate of rotten pig embryos, and at the same time you’re one house away crying in shame, lube dripping off your elbow, with your finger knuckle deep up some guys ass while he’s blasting a load on your face.
The difference is, at the end of the hour that guy’s life still sucks, and you’re living like you’re in a Jay Z video for the rest of your life.
It’s not like it’s really going to hurt you. I mean fuck, there’s a ton of dudes doing it everyday and they’re fine. They actually like it.
I’m not saying you’ll come out of it completely unscathed. I’m sure there’s going to be some painful memories to deal with, But you know what? I’m guessing 10 billion dollars can smooth that over right quick.
It might even help your relationships because now you’ll have a better understanding of why your girlfriend complains when you want to fuck her in the ass.
Maybe you’re not a materialist.
Maybe money doesn’t motivate you, so how about if it was that you had to do it for a more altruistic reason, like to save the world or something?
Let’s say a big gay alien is going to kill all of the people on Earth unless you suck his dick.
Would you do it?
And before any of you say that this is a ridiculous scenario, I would submit to you that it’s probably MORE likely that a gay alien would come here from another planet and ask you to suck his dick than it is that a guy would willing to pay 10 billion to bone me.
Think about it.
There are 100,000,000,000 stars in this galaxy alone, but how many dudes are there on earth that have $10,000,000,000.00 to blow on a piece of ass?
And let’s be honest, any guy with 10 billion can do WAY better than me.
As long as Billy Zane is out there, I can safely say the offer is never going to reach my desk.
So if the offer were real, would you take it?
Suck the gay alien dick and save the world.
If you blow him, he’ll not only spare all the people a horrible death, but also offer them the keys to enlightenment and elevate the entire race.
Would you make the ultimate sacrifice and offer your mouth to save every man woman and child on the planet?
Or would you say “Fuck that shit, I ain’t no space homo!” and let everyone die for your vanity?
Is the feeling of shame too powerful for you?
For some people gay shame is just too much to deal with.
There was a story just a week or so ago where this marine that was on leave picked up a hooker, and then found out that he had been duped, and had actually been pleasured by a man in a dress. He freaked out, killed the he-she, and dumped the body on Melrose. The cops chase him, and he leads them in a high-speed pursuit that ends up in a shoot out where the cops had to kill him.
All because the guy couldn’t deal with the fact that a dude blew him. Now, if the guy just had a sense of humor he would have had a great fucking story that he could tell people for the rest of his life, but instead the he wound up dead.
All because he couldn’t deal with the shame.
That’s pretty silly if you ask me.
Getting blown by a guy in a dress doesn’t mean you’re gay, it just means you got tricked.
He tricked you, so you kill him?
That doesn’t seem fair.
And what kind of a way is that to treat a guy that just gave you a blowjob?
Talk about ungrateful.
OK… maybe I’m getting a little off track here.
My point is… actually, I don’t really have a point. Oh yeah, the email.
So I get this email the other day, and it really made me laugh, because although I’ve been accused of being gay, no one has ever gone into such great depth about it.
He actually makes some pretty good points.
I thought it was worth a chuckle or two, so here it is in all it’s unedited glory:
You’re gay , aren’t you?
​
I’ve been watching you for a while now and I’m fairly convinced that you’re homosexual. I’m gay too, so I know what I’m talking about. You have a LOT of the “right” characteristics that make my Gaydar go off the scale and I just wanted to make sure you knew they weren’t going past unnoticed. I can tell a fellow cocksucker when I see one.
I first suspected you were queer when I saw you a few years back on Mad TV or something like that. Even tho I had no idea who you were at the time, you were a guest on the show appearing in a sketch involving a pool boy. After I watched you for a couple of minutes I said to myself, “Who the fuck’s this nelly queen?” From what I recall, you were a total sissy.
I guess it wasn’t until several months later that I saw you again on TV for something else. I realized I was watching they guy from MadTV that I thought was gay , so I tried to pay attention to find out who you were. I still didn’t know why you were a celebrity but I still thought you were gay . More so in fact because I took care to watch your mannerisms carefully. Remember, I’m gay so I know what to look for.
Now, after a couple of years, I know you host Fear Factor and also used to be on the Man Show after it stopped being hilariously funny. I thought you were gay then and I still do. It basically comes down to overcompensation but here’s a more detailed explanation of why:
1. Excessive Vanity. Dude, you’re waaaaaay too into yourself. You’re like a girl that way. Guys who are comfortable with their masculinity don’t need to always wear too-tight shirts or take their shirts off altogether, especially on TV. On the other hand, gay men love to see the male body exposed, including their own and those of other men. So by trying to draw attention to your own body, you’re really just worshipping mens’ bodies in general; you just happen to be attached to the one you’re trying to show off.
2. Open Homoeroticism. I mean, what’s up with that magazine picture with your body shaved and legs spread eagled? Tell me that’s not just asking for a dick up your asshole. Clearly, you’re a bottom. Ouch!
3. Flirting with the Boys. You may not notice it, but you leer at the hot men on your show. You shake their hands just a little too hard and for just a little too long, and try to be all buddy/buddy with them in a fake male-bonding sort of way. But I think you’re hoping that one of them will pull you in close shove his tongue down your throat. Anyway, its obvious that you like the men even though you toss those stupid, predictable lines at the chicks for cover.
4. You Just Look Gay . First, you have the gay CaesaNapoleon/George Clooney haircut for men with thin hair who comb it over their forehead because they don’t want to show their receding hairline. That’s related to Vanity, tho. Next, you have (very) ” gay eyes” which are basically eyes that look like a woman’s with unusually long lashes for a man, like you have. A lot of gay men have them actually; they’re a pretty reliable indicator of homosexuality. Personally, I think it has something to do with having more than your fair share of feminine genes and therefore some more obvious female characteristics.
But you also sound gay , too. The way you speak is also slightly effeminate although you overcompensate for it and try to effect a fake tough guy accent, like you’re from the ‘hood or something. Not working.
And as if that weren’t enough, you’re really too old to be dressing the way you do. I guess you’re probably in your late 30s by now but you look like you’re trying to pledge a frat. That’s not working for you either.
5. Your own Words. I did a Google search on the terms “Joe Rogan” and ” gay “. I was surprised to see how many links popped up and also how many times you were quoted as saying something that had to do with homosexuality. Usually you were defending it or trying to deminish any stigma still attached to it – and that’s good. But it also raises the question of Why is this guy so interested in gay stuff, and especially speaking about it so positively. That’s not usually something a straight guy would talk about out of the blue if nobody asked. But if somebody did ask you about it, why do you think they did? Hmmmmm.
So there you go. That’s why I’m almost 100% sure…no, wait, I AM 100% that you’re gay . But more importantly, I think I think its time you announced it publicly and just got it over with. Look, let’s be honest…your career can’t possibly advance any farther than where it is now so you shouldn’t hold back because you think being gay might hurt you or something. Thinking even a little bit ahead, you’ve really got nothing to lose..
Plus, once you come out, you can make the transition to gay porn movies more easily; it wouldn’t be so controversial if everybody already knew you sucked dick. But you’d better hurry Joe cause you’re starting to look a little worn out and you know the gay community places a premium on young, hunky, studs with tight bods. I say loosen up those leg muscles and get that hole ready for a close up before its too late.
P.S.: I’m totally serious. I think you’re gay . No kidding.
January 11th, 2005 | Category: The Rogan Blog

You know who I hate? People who talk about Star Wars on the internet.
For some reason the way Star Wars fans phrase their posts just fucking bugs me. They type like it's a college thesis, like they're a Star Wars intellectual, like people will think they're cool for their deep knowledge on the EU lore. I see this everywhere, in WhoWouldWin threads, in the comments of posts on here, even in the comments of my Star Wars RTs. There's always those one or two people who draft up a fucking essay, and the worst part is they always get their facts wrong while still speaking with that trademark air of false authority. They either mix canon and Legends or just use fan theory bullshit. God, I just hate people who talk about Star Wars on the internet so fucking much.
Anyways, time to talk about Star Wars on the internet. I finally got done with this: the sequel to my last post about Legends wank. If you're wondering about what "Legends" is or why I hate Legends wank so much, just read that last post, it covers it all in the intro.
Last post I focused on Palpatine, but this post doesn't really have any theme, still focusing on Dark Side stuff though. Speaking of my last post, I've actually updated it with new material, so go read it again if you want. I reference it a bit in here so you might want to do that to get context.
Before getting into things, I want to address some criticisms of the last post.

• You used WoG! - Yes, yes I did.

And that was the only criticism. Yeah, I guess that's a sign I did pretty well last time, because the Legends wank crowd just fixated on the one point I made that relied on WoG to ignore the entire thread instead of actually trying to come up with any actual rebuttals. Honestly I think it's a bit funny, cause I'm willing to bet my mother's life that if tomorrow George Lucas came out and said "mmm, every Legends Jedi is an MFTL multiverse buster," the same type of people who complain about using that piece of WoG would be tripping over each other to update the VSBW profiles first.
But okay, let's talk about WoG. If you don't know what WoG is, it stands for Word of God, and people use it to refer to something an author says about their story outside of the context of that story. Think of J.K. Rowling saying wizards shit on the floor and use magic to clean it up on Twitter. It wasn't in a book, but the author said it. That's what WoG is.
Personally, I think WoG should be judged on a case by case basis. This is how most battleboarders look at WoG, and I disagree with this mindset, I accept it more based on who's saying it and how much sense it makes with the presented material. I stand by using Tom Veitch's statements about Force Storms in my last post and still find them completely 100% legitimate, since he's the sole author of the Dark Empire story and his statements make the story make more sense instead of less. He also said it was the intended explanation when the comic was being released. I do, however, understand some people's trepidation when it comes to accepting WoG, which is why I've included other points about Force Storms in the post to outline why, even if you toss out WoG, they're still not applicable in most combat scenarios and don't scale to his other Force abilities.
I learned my lesson though, and I won't be using any WoG in my Legends wank posts again. Not because I think using WoG is wrong to do, no, I just don't want the whole post to be ignored because of one point. So yeah, that's my piece on WoG, not gonna say any more about that. Onto the actual thread.

The Claim: Darth Nihilus is a surface wiper

When someone comments "Legends is crazy bro," they usually like to tack on a few examples of "crazy" Legends characters. Abeloth, Grandmaster Luke, the one Sith that was immortal, etcetera. Because of the Obi-Wan Death Battle, he's become a recent favorite for this - I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone say "Obi-Wan can open a black hole with his mind!" because of that garbage fucking video. But a perennial favorite of the "Legends is crazy bro" posters is Darth Nihilus, an intimidating black-cloaked villain from the Knights of the Old Republic series.
From the way people talk about this guy, you'd think he's the Legends version of Galactus, a guy who flies around the galaxy eating planets and shitting out supernovas. Of course, as with all Legends characters, he is drastically, drastically oversold.
Saying Nihilus "eats planets" is misleading. He doesn't suck up the entire mass of a planet into his mouth, he uses a special Force Drain technique to consume the Force energy of the population of a planet, which causes collateral damage for unspecified reasons. Though it's said/implied he's done this numerous times, we only see Nihilus actually do this once to a planet called Katarr, in a flashback scene in a comic. It's shown to cause widespread ruination and reduce people to skeletons.
This is a good feat, sure, but the calc people toss around for it has more inflation than DeviantArt. A Narutoforums calc claims that he's outputting 727.586 petatons here. Or, as Death Battle would put it, 54 TRILLION HIROSHIMAS.
Just look at the assumptions being made. It assumes that Katarr was obliterated to the point where it was a flat ball of dust and all the oceans were evaporated, based on the end of the comic where you can see it through the windows of Nihilus's ship and it's shown as a featureless ball. But this can be explained as the ship having moved further away from the planet to the point where you can't see any detail on it in the time between him wiping the planet and going down to pick up his disciple from the place. It's said to be days later in a text box, so for all we know he could've travelled to a completely different planet in that time. The comic obviously doesn't accurately draw Katarr to scale anyways, so it being depicted as a flat ball in the last pages is probably just artistic license anyways, if it's the same place.
If that wasn't enough, we actually see what the surface of the planet looks like after the wipe, and check it out - there's still some shattered buildings around, ruined trees, and what looks like a still-standing tower in the background. I don't think those would be there if all the mountains were reduced to atoms and all the oceans were evaporated as the calc claims. So the 727 petatons number can be safely chucked in the dumpster.
Look, I'm obviously not gonna say Nihilus can't surface wipe with his Force Drain. It's pretty explicit from the comic. But what I am gonna say is that nobody scales to it, his other powers don't scale to it, and it's also just kinda irrelevant.
Before I cover those though, I just have one last thing to talk about: there's actually a debate on whether or not Nihilus's Force Drain is the thing that causes the damage when he "eats" a planet.
It mostly comes from this one encyclopedia entry for him which says that he drew "more and more power from worlds that he blasted into ruin" while traveling on his special ship, the Ravager. So the "blasting" comes before the "drawing," or draining. Basically people use this to say that what Nihilus actually does is destroy the surface of planets with the Ravager's weaponry and then sucks the Force out from the people on it after.
It's interesting, and the comic can actually line up with this idea if you read it a certain way. Honestly, a draining ability causing random explosions is pretty weird if you ask me, and the bystanders we see during this explosion seen don't really look like they're getting their Force drained. The depiction of his draining power is also off, in the game we see it's an orange energy bolt. No random explosions, no creeping black shadow. So it's possible the destruction we see in the comic is thanks to the Ravager firing on the colony, and the Force Drain happened after off-panel.
So yeah, I see why people think this could line up. But there are, of course, things that contradict this. Visas, Nihilus's disciple and survivor of the attack says that the destruction of Katarr wasn't done with a ship and the KOTOR Campaign Guide conflicts with this too, since it said he wiped out the life on the planet "using the Force."
So yeah, it's probably not the ship blasting thing. Just wanted to clarify that, cause I knew people would ask. From here on out I'm going with the regular interpretation.

Nobody scales to it

Nihilus is routinely pointed out as being an absolute oddity among the Sith and Force users in general. He's not even a regular being: he's a "Dark Side aberration", he's been called a living wound in the Force. His souped-up Force Drain is pretty well defined as a unique ability to him thanks to his specific origin and biology, and tons of Sith Lords have unique powers of their own. So scaling other Force users to his feat isn't really something you should do. I don't even think Palpatine could replicate this: sure, he could replicate any other of Nihilus's feats based on statements, but I don't know why he could use his super special wound in the Force "Lord of Hunger" Force Drain power.
Saying that anyone who isn't a living wound in the Force powered by pure overwhelming hunger could replicate his special Dark Side hunger-fueled Force Drain just lacks any sort of sound basis and doesn't work either objectively or narratively.

His other powers don't scale to it

Sure, Nihilus can suck out people's Force energy on a planetary scale, but it's not like he can put that power behind a Force push or something. I think this is pretty obvious but I feel the need to point this out because of the "VSBW model of damage output scaling."
This is a term I just made up for that thing VSBW does, you know, that thing. A witch could have two spells - shooting fireballs and making a big storm in the sky. VSBW will take how many biggatons it takes to make the storm, then claim her fireballs hit with the same force, when the best feat for the witch's fireballs is one lightly singing cardboard. It makes no sense to me because the fireball and the storm are obviously two separate things, so conflating them makes little sense.
But of course, people will say "well, all his abilities are powered by the Force, so they should all be equivalent." Short answer, fuck off. Long answer, no, there's tons of Force users in Legends and canon that have like a specific "gimmick." Yarael Poof's gimmick in Legends is that he's good at illusions, as an example. Others are specifically talented at using the Force to make cold mist, or specifically talented at telepathy, or psychometry, or mind reading, or whatever.
It's very, very well established that people can be better with certain Force powers than others. And once again, Nihilus's whole gimmick is that he's got a super special Force Drain he can use to suck the Force energy out of people. He's literally called THE LORD OF HUNGER. So saying "yeah his super special Force Drain damages a planet's surface, so he can do that with a Force push" is fucking dumb.

Kinda irrelevant

So his other powers don't scale to his Force Drain, hope you get that by now. So, outside of being useful for sucking out another character's Force energy in battle - which is a powerful move, believe me - his Force Drain's range is pretty much irrelevant. Sure, it can work on a pretty massive scale, but that doesn't really matter if he's just fighting one person. I'm not saying Force Drain isn't a good power against other Star Wars characters, just that the scale of it doesn't matter when people generally just put characters in one-on-ones on WhoWouldWin-type sites.
It also doesn't matter if he's not fighting someone from the Star Wars universe, since logically they wouldn't have any Force in them for him to suck out. Yes, his Force Drain affects more than just Force users, but everyone in Star Wars has Force in them, even planets have Force in them - this is pretty consistent, they say this kinda stuff in the movies. So Nihilus's Force Drain is only really relevant when you match him up against another Star Wars character.
But people like to equate stuff like life energy or ki or Force or chakra or Reishi or souls or whatever in battleboarding just to make things fair, so I guess that point is up to personal interpretation / the rules someone lays out in a thread.

Verdict: Only with a Force power that no one else scales to, that's unique to him, that his other powers don't scale to, and that's mostly irrelevant in a standard WhoWouldWin scenario.

The Claim: Vitiate is a surface wiper

There have been plenty of online Star Wars games over the years, but Star Wars: The Old Republic is easily the most popular. The main threat, as I understand, is this evil Sith guy with like 20 different names: Tenebrae, Valkorion, the Sith Emperor, whatever. Most people just call him Vitiate, as will I in this post.
I don't really care for MMOs, so I never really got into SWTOR despite being a Star Wars fan. My only exposure to it has been through research for these Legends posts, and I have to say, it looks just as boring as any other MMO. I also just kinda hate every aspect of its design, but that's neither here nor there. This is a battleboarding post, and the big thing every "Legends is crazy bro" poster talks about from SWTOR is Vitiate's planet-wiping ritual.
Yep, it's a ritual. Yeah, that word alone makes things pretty open-and-shut. Force rituals don't really scale to other abilities or Force users for obvious reasons. This particular ritual really doesn't scale, cause it requires - wait for it - the death of eight thousand Sith Lords to pull off. Sure, it wiped out all life on the planet it was performed on, a place called Nathema, which yeah, that's impressive. It worked by sucking all the Force out of the planet, which made Vitiate immortal and much, much stronger in the Force than he already was. It's a good ritual, not challenging that. But eight thousand Sith Lords is definitely not something Vitiate has on hand at all times.
There's some other stuff I could mention about this Nathema ritual, like how it also took ten fucking days and required some kind of computer named Zildrog which killed all the Sith Lords or something, but I really don't have to. You see, nobody gives two shits about the Nathema ritual. That's right, I just wasted your fucking time talking about it.
Here's the answer you'll get if you say "Vitiate's stuff is rituals" to your average Star Wars battleboarder.

While yes, the ritual on Nathema required the sacrifice of thousands, his later feat on the planet Ziost was done completely with his own power and was NOT a ritual. So, in summary, Darth Vader could TOTALLY blow up a planet bro!

So, let's talk about the Ziost wipe. The Ziost wipe, despite what people may claim, is still pretty obviously a ritual. Let's first explain the situation, I'm gonna be doing this in bullet points.

• At this point in the story, Vitiate is going around in a spirit form. He was trapped in this temple on Yavin, but after a battle there he was able to leech power off the death being caused to escape. He was left weakened by this, so he went to this planet called Ziost to replenish his power.
  
• He does this by taking over people's minds and killing people so he can sap the power.
  
• He's specifically taking over soldiers and Sith and using them to murder as many people as he can. The more people he murders, the stronger he gets, and the more people he can take over. It's a cycle basically. His goal is the accumulation of power to replenish himself. He even gains power from the people the player kills.
  
• After he's powered up enough to do so, or at least back to full strength, he unleashes a wave which moves across Ziost, turning every living thing to dust and turning the landscape into a dead husk.
  

Yeah, the argument people use here is that Vitiate can did the wipe alone without any ritual sacrifice because he was weakened beforehand, then got back to his standard level of power by slaughtering people on Ziost, then right as he was at that level did the wipe. Honestly, I don't know where people get the idea he did it right when he was at full strength. At the end of the missions on Ziost which you spend fighting those he's mind controlled, you actually go back to the space station place that serves as a mission lobby. During the time the player is there, it's clear Vitiate still has people under mind control and is still killing to increase his power. I can't find any indication of canonically how long the gap is between you leaving the planet and you getting the signal that the planetary wipe is happening, or if Vitiate did it right after getting back to full power. I might just be missing something, so let's just go with the assumption that he did the wipe right as he got back to full strength.
Remember when I said Force users have gimmicks in Legends? Well, Vitiate's is rituals, pretty much. That and being a body-hopping spirit. He uses rituals for a ton of shit, rituals are kinda his thing. Here's the evidence Ziost was just another use of the ritual, even if he did it of his own power. More bullet points.

• The effects of the Nathema ritual are described like this. Note these details: "utterly obliterating all traces of his victims," "buildings intact," and "no color."
  
• You can clearly see from this clip that the victims were "utterly obliterated" - they get turned to dust.
  
• This is what the aftermath of the Ziost wipe looks like. The planet is all shades of black and gray - no color. You can also see a standing building in the background.
  
• Here's some gameplay footage of a guy wandering around on Ziost post wipe. Yeah, most of the buildings seem alright, just like the book description of Nathema. And once again, no color. The monsters he sees were made by Sith alchemy by the way, if you're wondering how they're around.
  
• The Ziost wipe made Vitiate stronger, just like the Nathema ritual did.
  
• Later, when a character brings up his past ritual on Nathema, another mentions Ziost, saying that he did something similar there. The character probably used the word similar and not "the same" since they wouldn't know if it was exactly the same or not.
  

Some people try to say that this Codex entry disproves the idea that Ziost was a ritual. This is because it uses the word "but" while talking about rituals, separating the Ziost wipe from rituals as being its own different thing. This is not the greatest of arguments cause we see how the Ziost wipe works and I think it's pretty clearly supposed to be the same ritual Vitiate's famous for. The "but" here is more likely separating the "whispered rumors" nature of the previous planet-wiping events to the "clear display" of the Ziost ritual. The fact that they talk about an address to the Galactic Republic right after points to that. Honestly, it's how I read it the first time I saw it, this other interpretation didn't even cross my mind.
So yeah, it's a ritual. He can maybe activate it of his own power after the Nathema amp, but still, it's a ritual - very clearly its own thing with its own purpose and means of being performed. There might be some differences in the execution of Nathema and Ziost, but the practically identical outcomes show that the same principle is at play. And again, the ritual is more akin to a planetary Force Drain like what Nihilus does than some sort of planet-killing death wave. So let me address the same points as I did for Nihilus here.

Nobody scales to it

Saying that people can scale to a ritual is weird to me, but I guess you could say that if another Sith got their hands on the information of how to perform the ritual, they could do it, which would be a form of scaling. Sure, that works out to me I guess, but they probably wouldn't be able to do it of their own power like Ziost. Vitiate was only able to after doing it the first time, which permanently amped his power to a massive degree. They'd have to do the eight thousand Sith sacrifice first.

His other powers don't scale to it

Yeah this is just kinda obvious, Vitiate doesn't rip the crust off of planets with telekinesis or whatever, the ritual is what he does.
Honestly I don't get why people think you can scale Force powers to other Force powers at all. Like, what if a Force user only showed the ability to mind control people. Would you calc how many joules of energy it takes to mind control someone to determine how much they could hypothetically lift with their telekinesis? What if they only ever used Force lightning? How would you get the power of their mind control from that, would you take the wattage or something? Do you see why I think this is weird?

Kinda irrelevant

Since this is basically a weird version of Force Drain - works by sucking the Force out of the victims and the planet - just refer to the Nihilus section I guess. The funniest thing here is that, since planets in other verses wouldn't have Force in them to be drained out, you can argue that if you dropped Vitiate on real life Earth he wouldn't be able to surface wipe it. Kill everyone on the planet over time, sure, but not suck its Force out.

Verdict: Only with a Force power that his other powers don't scale to and that's mostly irrelevant in a standard WhoWouldWin scenario.

The Claim: Darth Bane is a surface wiper (feat. the thought bomb)

I'm gonna try and make this one brief. It's less complicated than those two doozies we just had to cover, so yeah. Remember the thing I joked about in the last post, "Darth Bane's world-crushing strategy?" Well, it turns out it's actually referring to a ritual that Darth Bane came up with.
Once again: ritual. Already it doesn't scale to anything, be that other Force users or Darth Bane's other abilities. It's a pretty uncomplicated ritual too, basically a bunch of Sith just sit together criss cross applesauce and channel their energy to make a storm that burns down a forest.
Apparently some people think this is surface wiping for whatever reason, which I don't understand. This ritual was intended to burn down a forest to force some Jedi out of hiding and is noted as being similar to and weaker than the thought bomb ritual, another ritual that involves a bunch of Sith joining together to do a thing.
Not going to say too much about the thought bomb as it's pretty complex, but it fucked up the ecosystem of the planet it was performed on, sucks up the spirits of Force users, and is a suicide attack. Otherwise, it's similar to the other ritual here with the Sith needing to join together to do it. Read the Wookieepedia page if you want to learn more. So Bane's ritual is explicitly weaker than that, despite his boast while performing it that he's going to "kill a world."
Also once again, we have an inflated Narutoforums calc. Sheesh, lots of Star Wars discussion on a forum for an entire different series.
The issue here is that the calc assumes the ritual covers half the planet when it stopped at the edge of a forest. It's also a bit wonky cause they made a lightning storm that burnt down the forest, it wasn't just some kind of direct energy blast or whatever. Trying to get a number out of the ritual is just kinda pointless anyways. It was cut short, so we didn't see its full power, and it's explicitly noted as being weaker than the surface-level thought bomb ritual. Plus, as we know from other Legends material, Force users combining their powers is multiplicative and not additive, so you can't even divide it by the people present or whatever.

Verdict: Only with a ritual that involves a bunch of Sith joining power.

Well, since I just covered a number of "surface wiping feats," let's go back to my first post and gather together all the surface wiping Force user stuff, shall we?

• Palpatine's Force Storms - Even ignoring the WoG which says Palpatine can't make Force Storms of his own volition, they don't scale to his other abilities and are completely irrelevant in most combat scenarios. If he tried using one in a normal fight, he'd almost 100% kill himself with it just due to its sheer size and erratic nature. So it's only really good as some kind of weird suicide attack.
  
• Random unnamed Sith Sorceress's ritual - Requires an obelisk to be built and several centuries of prep time, so it obviously doesn't scale to her other abilities and is completely irrelevant in any combat scenario I can think of. Also, this killed her.
  
• Nihilus's Force Drain - Pointed out as being unique to him, clearly doesn't scale to his other abilities, and the "planet wiping range" of this power is completely irrelevant in most combat scenarios.
  
• Vitiate's first ritual - Requires eight thousand Sith Lords worth of sacrifies.
  
• Vitiate's Ziost feat - Still a ritual, even if he can activate it on his own now. Doesn't scale to his other abilities and the "planet wiping" trait of this ritual is completely irrelevant in most combat scenarios.
  
• Darth Bane's ritual - Requires planning and multiple Force users joining together (which we know is multiplicative and not additive, so no one involved can scale), so it's completely irrelevant in most combat scenarios.
  
• Thought bomb ritual - Same as above, except it's also a suicide attack.
  

Well, looking at it, it seems pretty consistent to me that you either need a lot of outside assistance or some sort of super special gimmick power which is completely irrelevant to combat to surface wipe in the Star Wars galaxy. To be clear here, when I say "combat" I'm talking about a 1v1 scenario you'd usually see on a battleboarding site.
So, yeah. Saying something like "Force users can surface wipe with some abilites" is technically true, but very dishonest and misleading, cause there's like... literally 3 Force users, Palps, Vitiate and Nihilus (talking about "mortals" here, not space gods or whatever) that you can argue can reliably surface wipe without any external help. Even then, they're not using raw Force power or telekinesis to do it, they're using super special gimmick powers that aren't really that relevant in a fight.
Oh, and let's talk about who those 3 are. Nihilus is literally a Dark Side aberration whose entire gimmick is that he can drain planets, and Vitiate and Palpatine have both been called the strongest Dark Side user ever. Trying to say whatever random Force user has surface wiping power cause Vitiate or Palpatine or Nihilus exist is just fucking stupid, especially cause they have to use special gimmicks to do so.
I feel like people get the wrong idea about what I'm trying to prove with debunking Legends shit. I'm not trying to say Legends is anemically weak or anything, I'm not trying to say it's the weakest setting in existence, I'm not trying to say Legends Jedi couldn't tear apart a soggy piece of paper. Legends Force users are still strong, they're just not strong like Dragon Ball Z characters are - their strength doesn't come from planet busting laser beams or whatever, it comes from stuff like powers that bypass conventional durability, mental manipulation, and other forms of "hax." I know every battleboarder wants their favorite series to be just like DBZ, but that just isn't how Star Wars is.

The Claim: CANON PALPATINE IS MFTL+++!!!!1!!

That is not a joke, people fucking believe this. I bet you weren't expecting to see canon wank make an appearance in this post, but I saw this and I just had to comment on it. It's even from The Rise of Skywalker, the movie where Palpatine is constrained to a giant mechanical baby chair for the majority of the run time.
Here's the calc and here's the quote used from the canon expanded novelization. He's apparently 2000 times faster than light because he sent his spirit to Exegol to inhabit his new clone body before the events of TROS. Cause y'know, he was a clone in that movie, they never actually explained that in the movie itself I don't think.
Yeah, this is sounding awfully familiar, isn't it? Gotta say, 2000 times FTL seems small when compared to the outlandish number for the equivalent feat from the other post. This is because the calc-er decided to go with a timeframe of 24 years, based on the first appearance of Snoke. This is actually pretty clever thinking, props to the guy who did this. But, if they had just read 1 sentence further, they would've known that Palpatine was in his clone body before his old one even hit the bottom of that giant shaft. It's written a little oddly, but it's pretty clear that's the implication - there's no mention of any time spent wandering space or whatever, just a straight jump from his old body dying to jolting awake in his new one.
So, does this make the feat even better since the timespan's shorter? Well, I think you can guess the answer - this is pretty clearly just him warping his spirit over to his clone body. I'm not going to repeat the same arguments I made for the other spirit warp feat, I'm just going to repeat that I don't understand why people use this kind of shit at all.
Like, if you go with the "hurtling through space for 24 years at 2000c" interpretation what do these people think was going on during all that time? Seriously, I have so many questions if we go with this version. Here's just a few:
Was Palpatine screaming and laughing evilly as his spirit shot through space at MFTL speeds? Was it instantaneous for him or did he feel every hour? Was he at risk of getting sucked into a black hole? Or hit with a supernova? Was he doing ghostly loop de loops around solar systems for kicks? Is it like the Google Chrome dinosaur game where you have to dodge cactuses and birds, but with celestial bodies? Did every asteroid he dodge give him 10 bonus points on his score? Would he get hurt if he slammed into an asteroid? Did he have to eat or sleep? Did he stop by Dex's Diner to pick up a wampa burger on the way to his clone body? Did he have to take bathroom breaks to spirit pee? Did he fly by Leia and Han's house to scare baby Kylo Ren in the cradle? Was that what made him evil? Was he really bored after year 10, or did he enjoy it the whole way through? Was he playing Mario Kart Tour on his Force spirit iPhone to pass the time? Or was he playing a more "old man" game, like solitaire or sudoku? Did he know where he was going? Did he need a map? Or did he have one memorized? Could he have run in with other Force spirits just floating around? Did he have an awkward conversation with ghost Obi-Wan or ghost Yoda? Did he have to then fight them on the spirit plane to keep them from warning Luke? Was it like an awesome extra-dimensional battle where they shot ghost lasers at each other? Oh, what if he took the wrong Force spirit exit and ended up on Naboo? Could he have possessed someone else, like something other than his clone body? Was there a wacky mixup where he accidentally ended up in the body of a Gungan cause his old man eyes mistook it for his clone body? Did he spend a month or two in that Gungan body because he grew attached to the previous owner's wife and kids and enjoyed being back on his home planet? Did he have to have awkward Gungan sex with the wife to keep up the charade? Did he see the effects of the wars he caused on the Gungans and start to feel bad and regret the whole Sith thing? Did he have to then remind himself what he was doing and throw himself down that big shaft in the Naboo power plant Darth Maul fell down so he could get his soul out again? Or did he just commit suicide by booma sling to the temple? Was he emotionally scarred after that? When he did get back to his clone body, did he send money to the Gungan family to make sure that they were being taken care of? Did he secretly deliver a present to the little Gungan children's doorstep on Life Day? Did they open the door just as he was able to flee down the corner? Did the children, still grieving their father's death, catch sight of the back of his robe and ask their mom who that old man was? Did she look wistfully after him, shaking her head and saying she didn't know, but that she felt there was something familiar about him?
Honestly, this should be a fucking Disney+ series, this sounds entertaining as hell. You could call it "Dude, Where's My Clone?" and appeal to the stoner demographic. Or, perhaps, go in a more dramatic direction: "Star Wars: Soul Searching." Any way you slice it, a galactic roadtrip with a senile Sith spirit sounds like it could be really fun. Get on it, Dave Filoni.
Anyways, I don't really get why people think Force spirits have to travel anywhere at all. Remember how Obi-Wan died on the Death Star, then his spirit showed up on Hoth in Empire? Was he like, already there? Did he know through the Force Luke would need him there in a few years and start jogging over at a brisk 20,000c at the end of the first movie? How about his trip from Hoth to Dagobah? Or over to the forest moon of Endor?
When Force spirits show up - you know, how they fade into a scene - is that them popping out of lightspeed? Yeah, I really don't think so, they can just teleport I'm pretty sure. Well, "teleport" is probably not the right word, but you know what I mean.
Oh, here's another question: what about projections? Like how Luke sent a Force projection over to Crait in Last Jedi. Was his projection moving MFTL to get there in time or something? Does that mean canon Luke has MFTL reactions too? I think Yoda did the same thing in Rebels or something. Does that mean...
Wait. I should stop giving these people ideas.

Verdict: lol no.

The Claim: "The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force."

Jesus Christ, what am I doing? Why do I have to make an argument against this? Why do people use this?
I bet you think this is some kind of joke, but no, I see people use this statement all the fucking time. Fucking Death Battle used it in a Q&A, oh God, shoot me please let this nightmare end, I pray for death every day and it never comes. Either people use the original version Vader said in the original Star Wars or the version from the Dark Empire endnotes which upgrades it to being an entire system instead of just a planet.
First off, I'd like to point out that the Dark Empire endnotes version of the statement isn't specifically being said about Palpatine. The wording is "he said this during the time when he served the Emperor," not "he specifically said this about the Emperor." This is like basic reading comprehension, I learned this shit in kindergarten, but people misread this shit all the time and say "yeah Vader was talking about the Emperor." No he wasn't, learn to read.
Second, I seriously don't think that the VSBW crowd that brings this line up have even watched Star Wars or understand it at all. I'm willing to bet most have only seen the Dark Empire version posted around and don't know that the line is from the movie.
I'm certain about this because there are much better lines to wank. Obi-Wan says that the Force "binds the galaxy together" in the original movie. Does VSBW not know about this? Of course they don't, the only Obi-Wan quotes they know are fucking unfunny prequel jokes. If they did know about it every single character would be a galaxy buster because "they can control the Force which is a galaxy-binding energy." It's not too far from how they jerk off Yarael Poof.
Here's the thing: the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force. We see this in the movie. Luke Skywalker was only able to destroy the Death Star after he accepted the Force and let it guide him during the trench run. If it weren't for the Force, he wouldn't have made the shot. The Force allows him to overcome the planet-destroying Death Star. At the risk of sounding pretentious, that's kinda the fucking point.
The Force is higher than material things, it's not just something Jedi use to lift things into the air, it's literally their religion. It's a religion for the Sith, too, that's why Darth Vader's saying that in that scene. It's the same thing as a Christian person saying "God is mightier than all."
Taking this claim at surface level is the exact same thing as taking Admiral Motti's claim about the Death Star being the "ultimate power in the universe" at surface level. Sorry VSBW, gonna have to slide Palpatine down from a multi solar system buster to a sub-planet buster, he can't be higher than the Death Star. Move Abeloth and Grandmaster Luke and the Mortis trio and everyone else down too. Motti just said that the Death Star, which can only bust planets, is the "ultimate" power in the universe, so nobody can be higher. I'm sorry, I don't make the rules.
You know, it probably seems like I've been going hard on Legends wank, but honestly it's quite the opposite. I've been generous. I've given this shit the benefit of the doubt at every opportunity, and not once in this post or the post before have I used the "this is just a statement" argument. Even though a lot of this shit is just fucking statements.
Jerec with the Valley of the Jedi being able to blow up solar systems? Just a statement, we never see this.
The Sith Meditation Sphere being able to blow up stars? Just a statement, we never see this, the only guide that says this recaps the story incorrectly. It was the Sith Corsair ship that blew up the star in the comic, not the Sphere.
Wutzek being able to blow up solar systems? Just a statement, we never see him do anything like this.
And this? This is the definition of "just a statement." If you use this scene to say Jedi can blow up planets, you are a fucking moron, full stop.

Verdict: Please, please, please fuck off with this shit.